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Pharmaceutical company
AbbVie
announced its second major deal in as many weeks as it looks to make the best use of its balance sheet by complementing its neuroscience division.
AbbVie
said late Wednesday it will buy
Cerevel
Therapeutics for $45 a share, or about $8.7 billion, in an all-cash deal. Cerevel, which makes treatments for schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease and mood disorders, saw its shares spike 16% in premarket trading Thursday.
The purchase shows that AbbVie is trying to put the cash on its balance sheet to good use. The company recently lost patent protection for its blockbuster drug Humira, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The company was spun out of Abbot Laboratories in 2012.
On Nov. 30, AbbVie announced that it was taking over
ImmunoGen,
a cancer treatment developer, for $10 billion. Abbvie reported a 36% annual drop in sales in the third quarter. Even though it lifted its dividend and raised guidance for the year, the stock is still down almost 10% this year. Shares slipped 0.4% in premarket trading.
The pharma industry in general has had a rough year as demand for Covid-19 treatments weakened.
Johnson & Johnson
is down 11% since Jan. 1,
Pfizer
has dropped 44% and
Astrazeneca
trades 6% lower.
Write to Brian Swint at brian.swint@barrons.com
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