Posted By Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on December 14, 2024
(Reuters) - All regulatory closing conditions related to Novo Holdings' $16.5 billion acquisition of U.S. contract drug maker Catalent had been fulfilled, the companies said on Saturday, adding that the transaction is expected to be completed in the coming days.
Novo Holdings in February agreed to buy Catalent to boost output of the popular weight-loss drug Wegovy. According to the terms of the deal, Novo Holdings would sell three of Catalent's factories, where injection pens are filled in sterile conditions, in Italy, Belgium and the United States, to Novo Nordisk for $11 billion.
Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, which makes the blockbuster GLP-1 injectable weight-loss drug Wegovy.
Novo Nordisk said that the acquisition is expected to have a mid single-digit negative impact on the company's operating profit growth for 2025, and that the company is not expecting to initiate a share buyback programme in 2025.
The deal had received EU antitrust approval earlier in December, and the European Commission said in a statement that "The proposed merger would not raise competition concerns on any of the markets examined in the EEA (European Economic Area) or on any substantial part of it".
Several U.S. consumer groups and two large labor unions had urged the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in October to block the deal. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren had also called on the FTC to scrutinize the $16.5 billion deal.
The FTC in May had sought more information on Novo's acquisition of Catalent. However, there had been no update from the FTC since then.
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul)