As the deadline for Sanofi's call option, on the Intervet Animal Health assets looms, it seems some in the know suspect that antitrust authorities will require up to one third of the combined JV -- if created -- to be divested to satisfy anticompetitive concerns.
Potential bidders on these assets -- if offered -- would include Abbott, Pfizer, Fort Dodge, Janssen, Lilly, BIVI and Bayer -- along with a host of regional players not as widely known as the multinationals.
To the below very cogent observations, then -- I might add the cat and dog ear infection treatment markets -- both in the US, and large swaths of Europe, but I think this comment (graciously left in my inbox, over the weekend) gets it just about right:
. . . .Poultry's the biggest problem, we all know that. Cattle is possibly a problem, though I don't there's as much overlap as you might think at first glance (in the U.S. -- globally there are more issues). ButI think Lilly or Bayer would demand more than JUST poultry to get the deal done. My completely unscientific guess is that the "new" merial will be about 60-65% of what it would be without any divestitures.
February 7, 2010 3:45 PM. . . .
By the way, the Peter Loftus story on these topics, largely echoing mine, will run in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal. Cool.
