Briefs: Royalty sweetens offer for Elan; AstraZeneca biomarker deal

US private equity company Royalty Pharma today (April 15) issued a firm improved takeover offer for Ireland-based drugmaker Elan (NYSE: ELN), following its rejected, unsolicited bid for the company earlier this year, which Elan called opportunistic and overly conditional (The Pharma Letter February 26).

Just last week Elan struck back by securing strong (99%) approval from shareholders for a $1 billion share buyback at between $11.25 and $13 a share. Elan, which recently gave up rights to its only drug asset, Tysabri (natalizumab) has previously outlined plans of how it would deploy the $3.25 billion payment received from Biogen Idec, which included the share buyback plan (TPLs February 7 and 22).

The new offer from Royalty of $12 per share – or as much as $7.3 billion - is a premium of 23% over the previous bid of $11 a share. The proposal is a “firm, fully financed offer,” the company stated. Royalty Pharma plans to finance the offer through a combination of existing resources available to Royalty Pharma and new credit facilities. Subject to certain conditions as set forth in the announcement, Royalty is offering for each outstanding share and ADS of Elan the following: