| SkyePharma has an unsolicited suitor, engages Lehman Bros to advise |
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LONDON: British drug company SkyePharma Plc. confirmed that it has received an unsolicited takeover offer. The company, which specialises in developing improved delivery techniques for approved drugs, and also makes its own medicines, did not identify the suitor. Instead, it said it has engaged consultants Lehman Brothers to recommend suitable options.
The confirmation of an unidentified suitor sent SkyePharma's shares up 8.15 per cent at 49-3/4 pence. Intra-day it touched a seven-week high of 53-1/4 pence.
The stock has been languishing after the company had come out with a heavily discounted rights issue to fund the final-stage clinical trials of its anti-asthma drug Flutiform. The company plans to have the trials on its own as talks for a partner did not make much progress. It believes Flutiform could be a blockbuster drug clocking $1 billion-a-year sales and taking on GlaxoSmithKline's Advair and AstraZeneca's Symbicort.
Speculators mentioned U.S. firm Alkermes Inc. could be a potential suitor. It can also be Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is already a partner. Meanwhile, HBM BioVentures, a venture fund led by Henri Meier, former chief financial officer of Roche, had hiked its stake in the company to 6.63 per cent from 5.17 per cent.
SkyePharma has developed drug delivery systems for top selling drugs such as GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil CR, Novartis AG's Foradil and AstraZeneca's Pulmicort. This business has accounted for 12- million-pound revenue for the company in the first half, almost a third of its total revenue.
The company had pre-tax losses of 9.15 million pounds for the financial year ended June 2005 on a turnover of 36.04 million pounds compared to losses of 8.56 million pounds and a turnover of 35.1 million pounds in the previous year.
Posted
on : Tue, 15 Nov 2005 01:35 GMT | Business News
By : Pippa Fielding
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