Medarex Sold for $2.4 Billion

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. agreed to buy the claim Medarex Inc. approximately $ 2.4 billion to increase investment in cancer care product.

Bristol will pay $16 a share, a 90 percent premium over today’s closing price of $8.40 a share for Princeton, New Jersey-based Medarex, the companies said today in a statement. Medarex has about $300 million in cash and securities that reduces the cost of the acquisition to about $2.1 billion, Bristol-Myers said. Both boards agreed to the deal unanimously, according to the statement.

Bristol-Myers Chief Executive Officer James M. Cornelius has been eliminating jobs and outsourcing to reduce costs by $2.5 billion in the next three years. The New York-based company has been making acquisitions and forming partnerships to help offset revenue Bristol-Myers will lose when generic copies of Plavix, its top-selling medicine, come on the market in 2012.

“Medarex’s technology platform, people and pipeline provide a strong component to our company’s biologics strategy, specifically immuno-oncology,” Cornelius said in the statement. “This acquisition is another important step in our biopharma transformation.”

JPMorgan Chase is advising Bristol-Myers, and Goldman Sachs is working with Medarex.

Medarex gained $6.75 to $15.15 after extending trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market resumed at 7:45 p.m. New York time.

Skin Cancer

Bristol-Myers will gain full ownership of ipilimumab, the experimental drug for metastatic melanoma that the companies were working on together. Ipilimumab is in the final of three stages of testing typically required for regulatory approval. The companies are also studying the drug in lung cancer and certain types of prostate cancer.

Last month, Medarex shares jumped 13 percent after the Mayo Clinic said three prostate cancer patients who received ipilimumab are now cancer-free. Doctors reported the drug, in combination with other treatments, helped kill prostate cancer cells and shrink the tumors in the patients, allowing surgery.

Bristol-Myers will gain rights to seven experimental antibodies owned by Medarex and stakes in three more drugs shared by the company, according to the statement. It will also acquire Medarex’s drug-development technology used to find new ways to treat cancer and immunology disorders.