GlaxoSmithKline may be ready to acquire Human Genome, newspaper reports

Shares of the UK’s biggest pharmaceuticals group, GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) amid revived speculation that the firm’s chief executive, Andrew Witty, could be about to launch a $25 a share cash offer for “bombed-out” USA-based Human Genome Sciences (Nasdaq: HGSI), which currently trades in the USA at around $11 a share, well down from its 52-week high of $30, speculates Geoff Foster writing in the Daily Mail.

The two companies are partnered on the lupus drug, Benlysta (belimumab), which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Commission earlier this year (The Pharma Letters March 10 and July 15) to treat to treat patients with active, autoantibody-positive lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus), the first approval in over 50 years for that condition. Global expectations are skyscraper- high for the product, especially since it is licensed to GSK for commercialization, said Mr Foster.

According analysts polled by Bloomberg, annual sales of Benlysta could top $2.1 billion in the next four years, and could exceed $5 billion in 2020.