Teva denies rumors of Mylan takeover

Israel-based drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries has denied reportsin one of the country's newspapers that it is in talks to buy Mylan Laboratories of the USA, according to Bloomberg. The Israeli daily, Ma'ariv, reported that Teva is prepared to pay $3.05 billion in stock to acquire Mylan. Teva denied that the two companies are discussing a takeover, but also declined to say whether any talks have been held in the past.

Teva interested in US expansion

Such a move would make strategic sense for Teva, and its stated desire to expand in North America has seen the firm acquire Canada's Novopharm and Boston, USA-based Copley Pharmaceutical in the last year (Marketletters passim). However, the size of any bid for Mylan would lead to raised eyebrows in some quarters. Shani Kogan, an analyst at Nessuah Zannex Securities in Israel, told Bloomberg that a link-up with Mylan would make sense, "but the whole structure looks very strange," and added: "I doubt shareholders [at Teva] would be happy about giving up a third of the company."