Eisai to acquire MGI Pharma for $3.9 billion

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. & TOKYO, Japan Eisai has agreed to buy the biopharmaceutical company MGI Pharma for $3.9 billion as a way to increase their pipeline and to make more of a presence in the U.S., according to published reports.

MGI Pharma has about 10 drug candidates in its pipeline, which is focused on oncology and acute care areas. The company has three of those types of drugs on the market: Aloxi, a treatment to prevent chemotherapy-induced nausea; Dacogen, a drug used to treat myelodysplastic syndrome, which has been called pre-leukemia; and Gliadel Wafer, a drug delivery device for treating brain cancers.

Eisai offered a price of $41 per share, which is almost a 39 percent premium on MGI Pharma’s closing price on Nov. 28, which was the day before it announced that it was exploring “strategic alternatives”.

This is the second company that Eisai has bought this year, following the sale of the biopharmaceutical antibody specialist Morphotek nine months ago.