Novo Nordisk has launched a surprise $9bn (£6.9bn) offer for the US obesity-focused biotech firm Metsera that could gazump an existing bid from Pfizer as the pharmaceutical giants fight for dominance in the weight-loss market.
The bid comes weeks after Metsera agreed to a $7.3bn takeover from the US group Pfizer. Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, which owns the weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, lost out in a competitive auction processin September.
Pfizer criticised the unsolicited bid, accusing Novo Nordisk of making a “reckless” offer and claiming it was “an attempt by a company with a dominant market position to suppress competition in violation of law by taking over an emerging American challenger”.
Pfizer now has just four business days to sweeten its offer for the American upstart, which listed on the Nasdaq index earlier this year.
Metsera is seen as a lucrative takeover target in part because of its promising pipeline of obesity drugs. The company has four ongoing clinical trials, including a weight-loss pill, a monthly injection, and two drugs that promote feelings of fullness using the hormone amylin. Some researchers say amylin could avoid the kind of muscle loss that has been a problem with existing medications.
Novo Nordisk has offered $56.50 a share for Metsera, valuing the company at about $6.5bn. It offered a further $21.25 a share, worth about $2.5bn, if Metsera hits specific clinical and regulatory targets.
Novo Nordisk said in a statement that the takeover “would be in line with Novo Nordisk’s long-term strategy of developing innovative and differentiated medicines and treating millions more people living with obesity and diabetes and their associated comorbidities”.
Metsera said Novo Nordisk’s bid was “superior” to the existing bid from Pfizer, which offered $47.50 a share, and a further $22.50 for hitting additional milestones.
But Pfizer said the Danish firm’s offer was set up in a way that was intended to “to circumvent antitrust laws” and “carries substantial regulatory and executional risk”. It also rejected the suggestion that the bid was superior to its own, calling it “illusory”. Pfizer said it was “prepared to pursue all legal avenues to enforce its rights under its agreement”.
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Novo Nordisk has been battling a slowing rate of profit growth and a drop in its share price, particularly after losing ground to its US rival Eli Lilly, which makes the Mounjaro and Zepbound injections. Clinical studies have shown that Mounjaro is more effective in causing weight loss than Wegovy.
Eli Lilly raised its own full-year guidance on Thursday, as third-quarter revenue from those weight-loss and diabetes drugs beat forecasts. The company said it was still planning to put forward its own weight-loss pill to regulators by the end of the year.
