Deals
Novartis to Buy Glaxo Cancer Drugs, Sell Animal Health
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Novartis AG will focus more on cancer, GlaxoSmithKline Plc on vaccines and Eli Lilly & Co. on animal health as the drugmakers announced a series of deals for a total of as much as $28.5 billion today.
The transactions, as well as a plan to form a consumer-health joint venture with Glaxo, are part of an overhaul of the pharmaceutical industry spurred by the loss of sales as best-selling medicines lose patent protection. Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker, sold its infant-nutrition business to Nestle SA for $11.9 billion in 2012, and then last year spun off its animal-health unit.