Drug giant Merck is buying Lexington-based Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a whopping $9.5 billion deal a top state official said will spur growth in the Bay State's life sciences sector.
"These huge, global companies continue to show an interest in Massachusetts companies, which makes one of the cases for why they want to be here," said Susan Windham-Bannister, president and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
"Rather than consolidate, they've really invested to grow their presence in Massachusetts, so we have every reason to anticipate that Merck is going to further expand its footprint here," Windham-Bannister said.
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center awarded Cubist $1.7 million in tax incentives in 2009, according to Windham-Bannister. She said the Lexington company has added all the jobs it said it would as a condition of those incentives and maintained them for the last five years.
Windham-Bannister said she expects Merck to allow those jobs to remain in Massachusetts, as Takeda did when it acquired the Cambridge oncology company Millennium in 2008.
The deal includes $8.4 billion in shares, and Merck will assume $1.1 billion in debt. Merck said the deal will strengthen its hospital acute care business and help it address antibiotic resistance. Shares of Cubist closed yesterday at $100.60, up 35.29 percent, after the deal was announced.
Companies like Cubist serve a vital role in the development of antibiotics to treat diseases that have proven resistant to drugs, Windham-Bannister said.
"One of the biggest challenges we face in the world is that diseases can adapt and become resistant to drugs, so companies like Cubist are incredibly important," she said. "It has made Massachusetts even more of a global focal point for the development of antibiotics, especially ones for infections that have become drug-resistant."
Cubist pulls in most of its revenue from the antibiotic Cubicin. Another treatment, Zerbaxa, targets urinary tract and intra-abdominal infections.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to make a decision on that drug later this month, and European regulators also are reviewing it. Cubist paid more than $1 billion last year to buy two rival antibiotic developers: Trius Therapeutics and Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc.
"Cubist is a global leader in antibiotics and has built a strong portfolio of both marketed and late-stage pipeline medicines," said Merck CEO Kenneth C. Frazier. "Combining this expertise with Merck's strong capabilities and global reach will enable us to create a stronger position in hospital acute care while addressing critical areas of unmet medical need, such as antibiotic resistance."
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