Blackstone, Bain to bid for Mitsubishi pharma unit in up to $3.5 billion deal, sources say

By Kane Wu

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Global private equity firms Blackstone and Bain Capital are among final bidders for Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, a unit of Japan's Mitsubishi Chemical Group, in a deal that could value it at between $3 billion and $3.5 billion, three sources said.

Mitsubishi Chemical has hired Goldman Sachs to run the sale process and binding bids are due on Dec. 24, the sources said.

Local private equity firm Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) is also bidding for the company, said the sources, who all declined to be named as the information was confidential.

Blackstone, Bain Capital, Goldman Sachs and Mitsubishi Chemical declined to comment. Tanabe referred Reuters request for comment to its parent company.

Representatives for JIP could not be reached and the firm did not respond to a written request for comment submitted via its website.

Mitsubishi Chemical said in September, in response to a news report about the Tanabe sale, that the group is continuously reviewing the ideal business portfolio for all businesses, including pharma, and exploring all options including divestiture.

Set up over 90 years ago, Osaka-based Tanabe's pipeline includes a range of drugs for the central nervous system, immuno-inflammation and oncology. It has units in more than a dozen locations across three continents outside Japan, its website showed.

In the first half of the fiscal year to end-March, 2025 Mitsubishi Chemical's pharma segment reported a 6% increase in sales revenue to 232.5 billion yen and a 28% rise in core operating income to 41.4 billion yen, according to group disclosures.

(Reporting by Kane Wu in Hong Kong; additional reporting by Chang-ran Kim, Mariko Katsumura and Satoshi Sugiyama in Tokyo; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee, Kirsten Donovan)