GSK to buy cancer drugmaker Tesaro for $5.1bn
CEO Emma Walmsley has made replenishing GSK’s medicines cabinet her top priority
London — GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has agreed to buy US cancer drug specialist Tesaro for $5.1bn, marking a major biotech investment by the drugmaker as it seeks to rebuild its pharmaceuticals portfolio. Britain’s largest drugmaker is paying $75 a share for the business, a 110% premium to the 30-day average price. News of the lofty valuation sent GSK shares down 4% on Monday. The deal gives GSK a marketed product for ovarian cancer, Zejula, which belongs to the promising new class of medicines called poly ADP ribose polymerase (Parp) inhibitors. GSK’s UK rival, AstraZeneca, sells the rival Parp drug Lynparza. CEO Emma Walmsley has made replenishing GSK’s medicines cabinet her top priority and the company signalled its intention to make more acquisitions in April, when it hired a key deal-maker from Roche’s Genentech unit. GSK has lagged behind rivals in recent years in producing multibillion-dollar blockbusters and it largely sat out a spate of deal-making by rival drugmakers under prev...
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