Amgen to acquire Horizon Therapeutics for $27.8 billion

Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani explains news of a major biotech merger as Amgen is set to acquire Horizon Therapeutics.

Video transcript

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: Anjalee, elsewhere in the health care space, Amgen just agreed to buy Horizon Therapeutics. Tell us about that.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right. So Amgen the winner in this race. Horizon was fielding some interest from Sanofi and Johnson & Johnson earlier this year. The company known for catering to autoimmune disease and severe inflammation diseases. It does have one drug on the market.

And this deal closing at over $26 billion. That's pretty high. It's the highest number this year for deals. But of course, is completely eclipsed by what we saw a couple of years ago with that Bristol Myers Squibb and Celgene at $74 billion, and AbbVie and Allergan for $63 billion. But still, considering the, you know, sort of slow down in what we've seen in the biotech M&A space, this is the largest deal of the year so it clinches that award.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: It does seem to be still seeing movement in that M&A space for biotech. Great stuff. Thank you very much. Anjalee Khemlani there for us.