AstraZeneca acquires Cambridge Antibody Technology for £702 million

By Elaine Rigoli

Tampa, Fla., May 15 - AstraZeneca announced Monday that it will acquire Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc for £702 million, providing AstraZeneca with a royalty stream on the sales of Humira, potential milestones and royalties on other licensed products and access to Cambridge Antibody Technology's proprietary pipeline.

CAT-3888 in phase 2 and CAT-354 in phase 1 trials will be integrated into AstraZeneca's development portfolio, according to a news release.

"This acquisition represents a major long-term strategic investment by AstraZeneca in novel biological therapeutics. It is our intention to both expand and broaden the scope of our discovery and development pipeline and we expect that, by 2010, up to a quarter of our candidates for full scale development will be biological therapeutic agents," David Brennan, chief executive officer of AstraZeneca, said in the release.

The agreement is for AstraZenca to pay 1,320p per share in cash, equivalent to $24.96 per ADS at current exchange rates.

At that price, Cambridge Antibody is valued at £702 million. The equity not currently owned by AstraZeneca is valued at £567 million.

The per-share value is a 66.9% premium to the closing mid-market level on Friday.

Cambridge Antibody Technology is a biopharmaceutical company located in Cambridge, England.

AstraZeneca is an international pharmaceutical company based in Wilmington, Del.

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