AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid Vaccine Gains First Clearance With U.K. Nod Bloomberg 12/30/2020 Suzi Ring
(Bloomberg) AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine won U.K. clearance, marking the first approval worldwide for a shot that will be key to mass immunizations despite continuing questions over its efficacy.
The vaccine will be prioritized for the country’s most vulnerable groups, with shots starting Monday, according to the government. It’s the second coronavirus injection to be cleared for emergency use in the U.K., after one from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE was authorized in early December.
The move will help the U.K. ramp up vaccinations as a surge in coronavirus infections that’s fueled by a new strain puts growing pressure on hospitals. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told members of Parliament that the approval offers “hope to millions in this country and around the world.”
AstraZeneca’s $39 Billion Alexion Takeover Draws Questions
Bloomberg 12/14/2020 Tim Loh and Eric Pfanner
(Bloomberg) AstraZeneca Plc’s shares slumped to a nine-month low after it agreed to buy Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $39 billion, with some investors questioning the strategic rationale for the U.K. pharma giant’s biggest deal ever.
The acquisition would push AstraZeneca, which has built a turnaround on its strength in oncology, into new areas such as immunology. While those are potentially lucrative and could help address the U.K. company’s relative shortage of cash, there are few synergies with existing operations. And the transaction potentially adds to longer-term risks that the company faces from patent expirations.
Astra CEO Lands Mega-Deal, Defends Vaccine in Sydney Quarantine
Bloomberg 12/14/2020 Suzi Ring
(Bloomberg) Pascal Soriot, the head of AstraZeneca Plc, spent around two weeks in a Sydney hotel room with guards outside the door, stuck in quarantine after entering Australia.
During that time, he helped put the finishing touches on a $39 billion acquisition, while also parrying concerns over the much-anticipated Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca developed with the University of Oxford. That two such important developments should emerge while he was in confinement shows how crucial this moment is for the drugmaker and for Soriot s legacy. Not even the chief executive officer of one of Britain’s most valuable companies can escape the pandemic’s grasp. But Soriot didn’t let it slow him down.
Astra Plots Post-Covid Future With $39 Billion Alexion Deal
Bloomberg 12/13/2020 John Lauerman and James Paton
(Bloomberg) AstraZeneca Plc, one of the drugmakers leading the fight against Covid-19, highlighted where its growth will come from after the pandemic with a $39 billion deal for rare-disease specialist Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.
The proposed cash-and-stock acquisition will add treatments for uncommon blood and immunological disorders to the portfolio of Cambridge, U.K.-based AstraZeneca, which had spent years paring away older and less profitable products to focus on cancer.
While the pandemic smothered economies and AstraZeneca entered a relatively low-return project to develop a Covid-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford, Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot kept his eyes downfield. After months of patients avoiding hospitals and clinics for fear of viral exposure, immunizations are coming online that promise to return society, and the dru