AstraZeneca has continued its buying spree with a £2billion bid for cancer treatment specialist Fusion Pharmaceuticals.
The deal to buy the Canadian company is the latest in the drugmaker’s M&A splurge to build up its pipeline.
AstraZeneca has snapped up several smaller firms since December including rare disease-focused firm Amolyt Pharma for £800million earlier this month.
At the end of last year, the pharmaceutical giant struck a deal to buy Chinese cancer therapy firm Gracell for £1billion, weeks after it bought respiratory vaccine developer Icosavax for £900million.
The Fusion deal announced yesterday is part of AstraZeneca’s strategy to develop cancer treatments to replace chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Long-standing boss: Astrazeneca, led by Pascal Soriot (pictured), has snapped up several smaller firms since December including rare disease-focused firm Amolyt Pharma
Fusion will become a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca, with operations continuing in Canada and the US.
AstraZeneca’s executive vice president of oncology Susan Galbraith said: ‘Between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of patients with cancer today receive radiotherapy at some point during treatment, and the acquisition of Fusion furthers our ambition to transform this aspect of care.’
She said the tie-up could accelerate ‘a potential new treatment for prostate cancer’. Hargreaves Lansdown head of money and markets Susannah Streeter said the latest in a string of smaller acquisitions showed AstraZeneca ‘is not afraid to make multiple bets on potential first-in-class candidates’.
‘AstraZeneca is very much at the forefront of new ways to treat cancer,’ she added.
Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said: ‘Drug companies have learned their lesson from patent cliffs that they cannot rely on blockbuster treatments forever.
‘They need to keep the pipeline stocked up, acting like a conveyer belt so something else comes along just as an existing treatment loses patent protection and earnings fall victim to generic copycats.
‘Medicine is constantly evolving and today’s patient is hyper-aware of the next big development that could make their treatment more successful and less invasive.’
AstraZeneca announced earlier this month that it will inject £650million into Britain’s world-leading pharmaceutical industry.
The FTSE 100 group will invest £450million into researching, developing and manufacturing new vaccines at its plant in Speke, Liverpool.
The firm, which developed a Covid vaccine with Oxford University, will also spend £200million on expanding in Cambridge.
The investment suggested chief executive Pascal Soriot’s faith in Britain has been restored after last year he called the UK a ‘very unattractive’ place to do business.
He pointed to Astra’s decision to build a factory in Ireland instead of the UK as evidence of Britain becoming less appealing.
But the long-standing boss last month said: ‘The environment in the UK for life sciences today is different from what it was almost a year ago.’
Soriot, 64, has been credited with turning the London-listed drug maker’s fortunes around. Since he took the reins in 2012 the company’s shares have more than tripled.
He oversaw the development of the firm’s Covid vaccine that allowed lockdowns during the pandemic to be lifted.
The company more than doubled its annual profits last year, driven by bumper sales of its cancer treatments.
Profits hit £5.5billion in 2023, up from £1.9billion the year before, as sales rose 3 per cent to £36.3billion.
The group said revenue and earnings in 2024 would be lifted by its blockbuster oncology medicines.
AstraZeneca’s performance has boosted Soriot’s pay packet. He scooped up his biggest pay deal last year, earning £16.9million – the fifth year in a row that he has taken home more than £15million.
This took his total earnings to £135million during his 12-year tenure.
