Alexion Pharmaceuticals is spending about $8.4 billion—a huge premium—to buy Synageva BioPharma, a fellow rare-disease treatment developer that has no products on the market and which booked a first-quarter loss of nearly $60 million.
Alexion will pay $115 in cash and a portion of its stock for each Synageva share. That puts the total per-share price at about $226, based on Alexion's Tuesday closing price.
That's more than double the value Synageva BioPharma Corp.'s closing price of $95.87 on Tuesday. Shares of the drugmaker are soaring in premarket trading.
Alexion Pharmaceuticals is based in Cheshire, Conn., and makes Soliris, which is approved to treat a rare, life-threatening blood disorder called paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
Synageva's lead product in development, the rare disease treatment Kanuma, is being reviewed by federal regulators.
