Biogen stock jumps on report of interest from Merck, Allergan

Biogen Inc. shares spiked Tuesday after a report by the Wall Street Journal that Merck & Co. and Allergan PLC have each considered a takeover of the biotechnology company.

“With the departure of their CEO, Biogen has put up a short-term ‘for sale’ sign, indicating to interested parties that now would be a time to show interest,” Geoffrey Porges, an analyst at Leerink Partners, said.

There are other potential parties that are likely to be interested; there isn’t a pharmaceutical company on the planet that wouldn’t like to have a leading Alzheimer’s disease program.

The drug’s pipeline has shown promise, and this week the company said that an experimental therapy it worked on with Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. succeeded in a late-stage trial.

Allergan on Tuesday completed a $40.5 billion cash-and-stock deal to sell its generic drugs business to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The deal will give Allergan flexibility to pursue acquisitions, though CEO Brent Saunders said in June he was looking at “more smaller-scale tuck-in deals that will support our therapeutic area leadership and innovation.”

In April, it terminated an agreement to be bought by Pfizer Inc. for $160 billion, after the U.S. government announced tax rules designed to limit the benefit of the transaction.