(Bloomberg) -- AbbVie Inc. beat out Johnson & Johnson with a last-minute bid that clinched the $21 billion acquisition of Pharmacyclics Inc., gaining control of a blockbuster blood cancer therapy.
AbbVie, based in North Chicago, Illinois, will pay $261.25 a share using a mix of cash and its own stock, the two companies said. Pharmacyclics was nearing an agreement to be acquired by J&J, which was offering about $250 a share, before AbbVie topped the bid, said a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified as the details are private.
The purchase would help AbbVie reduce its reliance on Humira, its best-selling rheumatoid arthritis treatment, while expanding into the lucrative area of cancer therapy. It would gain control of Imbruvica, a pill that costs about $100,000 a year, avoids certain serious side effects of chemotherapy, and is already approved for four different blood cancer uses.
AbbVie’s price is 39 percent higher than Sunnyvale, California-based Pharmacyclics’s closing price on Feb. 24, the day before Bloomberg News reported that the company was considering a deal. Amy Jo Meyer, a spokeswoman at New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J, declined to comment...
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