BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

Ebb & Flow

December 9, 2002 8:00 AM UTC

The preferred currency for biotech M&A has been stock rather than cash, because most CEOs want to keep the latter to fund R&D. Thus, it's notable that Triangle (VIRS) is the third Warburg Pincus portfolio company to get acquired for cash in the last three months. The other two are Synaptic and Visible Genetics. Lundbeck (CSE:LUN) plans to buy SNAP for $121 million in cash, and Bayer Diagnostics bought Visible Genetics for $61.4 million (see BioCentury, Nov. 25 & Oct. 21).

GILD, which is paying $464 million for VIRS, has its own reasons for wanting to pay cash(see "Strategy," A6).But that still leaves the question of whether Warburg is demanding cash rather than stock in order to sign off on a deal. Investors are left to speculate, as Warburg declined to discuss the transactions. ...