Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Wyeth may become one of the world’s biggest vaccine makers with the acquisition of Crucell NV, a Dutch developer of medicines against AIDS, rabies, and Ebola.

The drugmaker is in talks to buy Crucell, based in Leiden, Netherlands, for $1.35 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal. Crucell had a market value of 760 million euros ($1.03 billion) at the close of trading yesterday. Its shares surged as much as 42 percent today.

Wyeth Chief Executive Officer Bernard Poussot has focused the company’s research on vaccines, a dependable source of sales for drugmakers because they don’t lose patent protection and are often purchased by governments. Poussot turned Wyeth’s pneumonia vaccine Prevnar into its second best-selling product with $2.4 billion in 2007 revenue.

“Vaccines are probably one of Wyeth’s most important platforms of technology, so I think this is a smart move for them,” said David Moskowitz, an analyst with Caris & Co., in a telephone interview yesterday.

Doug Petkus, a Wyeth spokesman, declined to comment. Crucell confirmed the negotiations, but not the price under discussion, said spokeswoman Oya Yavuz.

Ebola and AIDS

Crucell develops vaccines and antibodies to treat diseases such as the flu, hepatitis and typhoid fever. The company was picked by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop vaccines against the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses. It’s also working on an AIDS vaccine which, in early studies, kept six monkeys from getting an animal equivalent of the disease.

The Dutch company’s best-selling product is Quinvaxem, a liquid vaccine co-developed with Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis AG and introduced in 2006 that protects against five childhood diseases including pneumonia and whooping cough. Crucell reported its first profit in last year’s third quarter.

“We expect Crucell to play a hard bargain,” Jan Van den Bossche, an analyst with Petercam Life Sciences, said in a note to clients. The company has enough cash to continue developing its experimental products alone and submit a new flu vaccine to U.S. regulators in 2010, he wrote.

Wyeth already has bought the rights to use Crucell’s technology known as PER.C6, a line of cultivated human cells used to produce biopharmaceuticals, to develop vaccines.

Challenge Glaxo

Crucell shares rose 4.42 euros, or 38 percent, to 16 euros, the most in more than a year, at 4:05 p.m. in Amsterdam. Wyeth rose 7 cents to $38.25 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

The deal would allow Wyeth, of Madison, New Jersey, to challenge GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, and Sanofi-Aventis SA, the second-biggest. Crucell would give Wyeth more than $250 million in added revenue, nine vaccines under development and factories in Switzerland, Sweden, Korea and Spain.

Other drugmakers may be mulling rival bids for Crucell, analysts said.

“The takeover talks could trigger other pharmaceutical companies like Novartis and Sanofi-Aventis to consider a takeover bid,” according to Marcel Wijma and Huub Verschueren, analysts at SNS Securities. The $1.35 billion price being discussed for Crucell “is only a first offer in negotiations,” the analysts wrote in a note to clients.

Sanofi spokesman Jean-Marc Podvin declined to comment on a potential bid, as did Eric Althoff of Novartis.

‘Blockbuster’ Vaccines

Wyeth and rival drugmakers are looking for acquisitions as $84 billion worth of their prescription products are scheduled to lose patent protection by 2013. Wyeth is the world’s fourth- richest drugmaker, with $14.1 billion in cash and short-term assets as of Sept. 30, according to data complied by Bloomberg.

Wyeth’s top-selling Effexor depression pill, with $3.8 billion in 2007 sales, will get generic competition next year. The company is trying to reduce its dependence on pharmaceuticals and plans to reap 75 percent of its revenue by 2012 from biotechnology medicines, vaccines, over-the-counter treatments and animal products, Poussot has said.

“Who would have thought that vaccines would be blockbusters?” Poussot asked at an investor meeting in New York yesterday before the deal was reported. “Five years ago, nobody believed that a vaccine could ever do that, but we have been able to do that with Prevnar.”

Crucell has partnerships with Merck & Co., Sanofi, Novartis, and AstraZeneca Plc’s MedImmune division.

Crucell “is in friendly discussions with Wyeth that may lead to a combination of the two companies,” the Dutch company said in the statement. “These discussions are at a preliminary stage and there is no certainty that they will result in a transaction. An update will be provided in due course.”

Sales of Wyeth’s Prevnar vaccine rose to $717 million in the third quarter, helped by its addition to national immunization programs. The World Health Organization recommended last year that developing countries add Prevnar to their immunization plans to reduce bacterial pneumonia and meningitis caused by pneumococcus.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kurt Heine in New York at kheine1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 8, 2009 10:16 EST