Mer­ck, wad­ing even fur­ther in­to rare dis­ease, inks $11.5B deal for Ac­celeron and its po­ten­tial PAH block­buster

Con­firm­ing days of ru­mors and in­sid­er leaks, Mer­ck will ac­quire Ac­celeron Phar­ma and its lead PAH drug so­tater­cept for $11.5 bil­lion, the com­pa­nies said Thurs­day.

The ac­qui­si­tion doesn’t come at much of a pre­mi­um: Shares of $XL­RN closed Wednes­day at around $175, sus­pi­cious­ly plum­met­ing from a high of around $186 ear­li­er in the day. The com­pa­ny’s stock had ticked up for days af­ter re­ports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Jour­nal quot­ing in­sid­er sources most­ly out­lined the terms of the deal with Mer­ck.

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