With headlines like this from (Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc – NASDAQ:JAZZ) we knew it wouldn’t go unnoticed by Levrett Plc (LON:LVRT) CEO Pascal Hughes, who we caught up with to ask his thoughts.
“This is an eye-catching deal even by the standards of biotech M&A of the past few years, a 72% premium to Friday’s closing price and the stock traded at $1.50 as recently as March 2016, before Celator announced positive results from it’s leukaemia drug trial and then successfully attained ‘orphan’ designation, a reminder that companies that successfully develop good science can command big premiums and generate very high returns for investors, regardless of where we are in the overall cycle.
The company is still pre-revenue demonstrating that big pharma continue to be willing to pay substantial premiums for promising treatments at the pre-approval stage.
Furthermore, in the case of Jazz, they are seeking to address the coming patent expiry on their principal revenue earning drug though M&A, a continuation of one of the major drivers of transactions and here valuations, in the sector in recent years – the strategic imperative of replacing expiring patents and hence revenue streams and building up a portfolio of therapies in a particular sector.” – Pascal Hughes CEO Levrett Plc.
Levrett plc is a special purpose acquisition company formed to acquire realisable and/or developed commercial technologies focused in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology sector. The Company draws on its expertise in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology sector to assess different propositions and initiate discussions via market contacts and professional advisers. In selecting acquisition opportunities to review, the Board will focus on entities that are available at attractive valuations and hold opportunities to unlock embedded value.