Sanofi and Am­gen are bring­ing cash to cov­er the ta­ble stakes for the Hori­zon M&A game

With the mar­ket cap on Hori­zon Ther­a­peu­tics $HZNP pushed up to the $23 bil­lion mark to­day, one of the Big Phar­mas in the hunt for a ma­jor league buy­out deal sig­naled it’s play­ing the M&A game with cash.

Paris-based Sanofi, where CEO Paul Hud­son has been large­ly fo­cused on some risky biotech ac­qui­si­tions to win some re­spect for its fu­ture pipeline prospects, is­sued a state­ment ear­ly Fri­day — com­ply­ing with Rule 2.12 of the Irish takeover rules — mak­ing clear that while the cer­tain­ty or size of an of­fer can’t be de­ter­mined, any of­fer “will be sole­ly in cash.” And Am­gen CEO Robert Brad­way came right in be­hind him, fil­ing a state­ment on the Lon­don Stock Ex­change overnight that any of­fer they may make will “like­ly” be in cash as well.

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