Pfizer agrees to buy Lake Forest's Hospira in $17B deal
Pfizer Inc. agreed to buy Hospira Inc., the biggest provider of injectable drugs and infusion technology, in a transaction valued at about $17 billion.
Pfizer will pay $90 a share in cash, the New York-based drugmaker said today in a statement, a 39 percent premium to Lake Forest-based Hospira's closing price Feb. 4, according to a statement released Thursday morning.
"The Pfizer-Hospira combination is an excellent strategic fit, presenting a unique opportunity to leverage the complementary strengths of our robust portfolios and rich pipelines,” said Hospira CEO F. Michael Ball.
“I want to recognize and thank our 19,000 employees around the world for their tireless efforts to deliver more affordable health care solutions, increase patient access to high-quality care and drive sustained growth for our shareholders,” Ball said in a statement.
Both sterile injectables and biosimilars are large and growing categories. The global marketplace value for generic sterile injectables is estimated to be $70 billion in 2020. The global marketplace for biosimilars is estimated to be approximately $20 billion in 2020.
Pfizer expects to finance the transaction through a combination of existing cash and new debt, with approximately two-thirds of the value financed from cash and one-third from debt. In addition, Pfizer anticipates the transaction to deliver $800 million in annual cost savings by 2018.
Hospira Inc., the world's leading provider of injectable drugs and infusion technologies, and a global leader in biosimilars, will host a conference call to discuss its fourth-quarter and full-year 2014 results and projections for 2015 today at 8 a.m.