Halozyme Therapeutics to acquire Antares Pharma in all-cash deal

In a deal that will strengthen its emphasis on the delivery of drugs, Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. offered to acquire specialised biopharmaceutical business Antares Pharma Inc. for roughly 1 billion dollars.

Halozyme released a Statement saying that it would pay $5.60 per share in cash for Antares, pricing the company at $960 million.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the day that the two corporations were close to reaching an agreement.

Antares' stock rose over 50% in premarket trading on Wednesday. They were trading at $3.74 on Tuesday, giving Antares a market capitalization of $640 million. Antares, based in Ewing, New Jersey, specialises in injectable medications and offers a range of testosterone replacement therapy.

Based in San Diego Halozyme has a market capitalization of $5.7 billion. The transaction is the first significant step in Halozyme's plan to expand through merger or acquisition, which was prompted by the failure of a clinical trial for a pancreatic anticancer therapy in 2019.

Enhanze, a drug-delivery product developed by Halozyme is an enzyme that allows hours-long intravenous drug treatments to be administered in minutes. Pfizer Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. are among the companies that have licenced the technology.

Antares' acquisition would allow the firm to expand its therapeutics network and diversify its offerings by adding speciality pharmaceuticals.

While medicine is usually one of the busiest industries for mergers and acquisitions, activity has slowed dramatically this year. As per Dealogic, approximately $72 billion in medical mergers have been reported so far this year, down from $162 billion at the same time last year.

Resulting from market instability, greater regulatory inspection, and concern emanating from Russia's incursion of Ukraine, global deal volumes across all sectors are down around 28% from last year.