Asahi Kasei to Buy Swedish Biotech for Rare Disease Drug
- Japanese bidder offers 83% premium to grow pharma business
- Sweden’s Calliditas makes kidney treatment approved in US
The move comes as large pharma companies snap up smaller, more innovative firms to gain promising products.
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Japanese industrial group Asahi Kasei Corp. plans to buy Swedish biotechnology firm Calliditas Therapeutics AB for about 11.8 billion kronor ($1.1 billion) to boost its global health-care business.
Asahi Kasei offered to pay 208 kronor per share, an 83% premium to Calliditas’s previous close, prompting the stock to surge to a record 205.2 kronor in Stockholm trading.