This Morning's Spinoff News Makes... A Full Circle, Here.

Ahem. This blog — in many ways — began life as a chronicle of Fred Hassan’s obfuscations related to the less than convincing post-market clinical study data on Vytorin^® / Zetia^®.

Then Merck bailed its 50-50 partner, Schering-Plough, out of the mess by buying it out, in a reverse merger designed to avoid losing the rights to the anti-inflamatory Remicade^®. There was. . . however, inflamation: litigation — lots of it; and arbitrations. . . And ultimately, multi-billion dollar write-downs, and settlements.

A bit then, from MSNBC:

. . . .Merck said on Wednesday it intends to spin off its women’s health, biosimilar drugs and older products into a new publicly traded company, a move that will allow the company to focus on growth drivers like cancer drug Keytruda^® and vaccines.

The spin-off will reduce the number of human health products that Merck makes and sells by about 50%.

The move is a culmination of the drugmaker’s strategy of tightening its focus around a few key areas, particularly cancer, where Merck has turned Keytruda into one of the world’s best-selling drugs, Merck Chief Executive Officer Ken Frazier said in an interview.

“The whole key to this is that it allows Merck to be much more focused on its greatest growth opportunities.”

Merck, which expects to complete the transaction in the first half of 2021, said the new company will send it $8 billion to $9 billion through a special tax-free dividend. The new company is expected to have $8.5 to $9.5 billion in debt. . . .

So, over twelve years later. . . we have squared the circle. Maybe the spinoff company should be called. . . Sch-Merck. More, after I digest it all. Heh.

Schering had also, along the way, acquired Organon’s birth control portfolio — and now after a decade of ownership by Merck, it will return to a stand-alone marriage with what was once 60 per cent of all the profitability of Schering (the cholesterol management franchise). Of course, the move makes good sense for Merck — it sheds the low growth businesses, and keeps high flying Keytruda^® as the horse it is riding in the Twenties. Onward — ever. . . Onward.

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