Ebb & Flow

A profitable, private biotech company seems almost an oxymoron, but that’s what Ikaria and its investors are creating with last week’s acquisition ofINO Therapeutics for $500 million to be paid in cash to INO’s parent company, The Linde Group (FSE:LIN).

A therapeutic gas company, INO isn’t core to LIN’s industrial gas and engineering business. "It’s the only pharmaceutical product within a whole empire that’s worth $15 billion in sales," noted David Shaw, chairman and CEO-designate of the combined Ikaria entity. "That suggested they might be willing to let go of it."...