Pharma BD Deal Intelligence

Abbott Laboratories / Knoll Pharmaceutical Company (BASF Pharma)

2001 · Acquisition/Merger · $6.9B · Complete

WRONG BY 37 POINTS

A deal Wall Street panned as reckless overpayment delivered Humira — pharma's best-selling drug in history, generating over $200B in cumulative sales and spinning off AbbVie.

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Ranks computed across 828 graded deals (Critic + Outcome Score both present).

The coverage arc

Dec 15, 2000 chemeurope.com Neutral

BASF sold its Knoll pharmaceutical business to Abbott for $6.9B cash; Abbott CEO Miles White cited 'significant synergies' and an 'excellent strategic fit' as…

Jan 01, 2024 Wikipedia (peer-citation summary) Bullish

Adalimumab was the first fully human monoclonal antibody approved by the FDA (2002) and became the largest selling pharmaceutical product worldwide from…

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Abbott acquired BASF's pharmaceutical unit Knoll for ~$6.9B cash; brought in D2E7/adalimumab (later Humira) plus Synthroid, Mavik. Closed 2001-03.

Did it work? Outcome assessment

A deal Wall Street panned as reckless overpayment delivered Humira — pharma's best-selling drug in history, generating over $200B in cumulative sales and spinning off AbbVie.

Strategic verdict
Achieved Stated Rationale

Key facts

Related deals — scored

DealYearValueOutcome
Abbott Laboratories / Knoll Pharmaceutical Company (BASF Pharma) (this deal)2001$6.9B100
Abbott Laboratories / Knoll Pharmaceuticals (BASF Pharma)2000$6.9B95
Abbott Laboratories / Alere Inc.2016$5.8B95
Abbott Laboratories / St. Jude Medical2016$30.5B82
Abbott Laboratories / TheraSense Inc.2004$1.2B81
Abbott Laboratories / Vysis Inc.2001$355M79
Abbott Laboratories / Genentech, Inc. (Roche Group)200779

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