Pfizer reportedly in advanced talks to acquire US cancer drug company Medivation for $14bn

Pfizer is reportedly close to acquiring biopharmaceutical company Medivation for about $14bn (£10.74bn).The deal, which could be announced as early as Monday (22 August), will give Pfizer access to Xtandi, a prostate-cancer treatment drug that has already been approved for sale in the US.

Unnamed sources cited by Reuters said the New York-based pharma giant will pay more than $80 per share for Medivation, whose shares closed at $67.16 on Friday (19 August). At this price, the market value of the California-based firm was $11.1bn.

The acquisition comes at a time when Pfizer, whose oncology offerings include breast cancer drug Ibrance, is relying on cancer drugs and other new branded treatment to boost revenues. This is amid a decline in the sales of older medicines.

According to an analyst cited by Bloomberg, Medivation's Xtandi has the potential to generate annual sales of $1.33bn by 2020.

The news follows Pfizer reporting better-than-expected earnings, which was due to sales of its Ibrance drug improving.

This is not the first takeover offer that the biopharma company has received. Earlier in April, France's Sanofi had offered $52.50 per share initially to Medivation. It later upped the price to $58 a share. However, the deal was rebuffed by Medivation. Apart from Sanofi, American companies such as Celgene and Gilead Sciences are also believed to have submitted expressions of interest to acquire Medivation.

If the Pfizer deal is given the green light, it would be a major blow for Sanofi as it has been trying to acquire Medivation for about five months. Pfizer had acquired Hospira for about $17bn in 2015.

Apart from Xtandi, Pfizer would also get access to Medivation's Talazoparib drug which is used to treat breast cancer and another blood cancer drug called lymphoma, which is under development by Medivation. Katherine Xu, an analyst at William Blair & Co said that Talazoparib could churn in annual peak sales of $3bn in the future.