Shares in Amylin Pharmaceuticals doubled (54%) in price after it was revealed the company rejected a $3.5 billion takeover bid from BMS in February.
Two people with knowledge of the offer revealed that Amylin’s board rejected BMS’ $22 a share acquisition offer with analysts now predicting bids from other pharmaceutical suitors.
Robyn Karnauskas, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, says the San-Diego based company may be worth as much as $31 a share after it received regulatory approval for its diabetes drug Bydureon in January 2012.
Amylin saw its shares close at $23.77 in New York, the biggest single-day increase since August 1999.
Analysts now predict that Amylin could be set for further bids from the likes of AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Takeda and Merck.
“The question is who can extract the most value, because this is all a commercialisation story from here,” said Joshua Schimmer, an analyst from Leerink Swann.
It’s believed that BMS has not approached Amylin with a further offer since its initial bid letter, people familiar with the matter said.
Amylin is believed to be searching for a new marketing partner for its products outside the US and is in discussions with a number of interested parties, sources said, after its decade-long collaboration with Eli Lilly ended in November 2011.
It recorded $650.7 million in revenue last year, had nearly half-a-billion dollars ($496m) in long-term debts, a $924.3 million promissory note related to revenue sharing, and $204 million in cash, equivalents and short-term investments, according to a statement published around the same time as BMS’ offer.
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