<http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/sanofi-and-merck-announce-4-billion-merial-sale/?8au&emc=au> START SHORT QUOTATIONS >Sanofi-Aventis said Thursday it had agreed to buy Merck & Company's >50 percent stake in Merial, an animal-health joint venture, for $4 >billion in cash. > >Merck is selling the stake because regulators have said its purchase >of Schering-Plough would make it too dominant in the animal health >market. > >Sanofi said the price valued Merial at 10 times last year's >earnings... END QUOTATIONS So, deciding to keep any of the Merial meds that ferrets need will be based on the choices of Sanofi-Aventis unless regulators stop the sale. Now, the ferret groups and the BFF conservation people know which company to encourage to continue products such as Galaxy and IMRAB 3. Perhaps the quality will also improve once merger madness ends and companies settle down once again into what matters. QUOTE >Merck said that deal was subject to approval by antitrust regulators, >but that it expected the transaction to be completed before its >takeover of Schering-Plough in the fourth quarter of this year. END QUOTE It is legal to carry full press releases, but this one is long: http://www.merck.com/newsroom/press_releases/corporate/2009_0730.html http://en.sanofi-aventis.com/ Pfizer and Wyeth is the other merger to watch for veterinary drug sell offs. Bayer is among the companies looking at some of those products. The latest on that seems to be: <http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/07/30/merck-sanofi-and-scherings-love-triangle.aspx> BEGIN QUOTE >Here's the take-home message: sanofi is mostly in the driver's seat >over what its animal health division will look like. Any chance that >Bayer or Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) had in grabbing Merial or Intervet to >expand their own animal health divisions seems to be gone. But there's >always the potential that they could pick up a few animal health >products that Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Wyeth (NYSE: WYE) might need to >divest to satisfy antitrust regulators for that merger. END QUOTE and a little less recent: <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=3D20601202&sid=3DajY9mUX_zdVc> <http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/23/pfizer_may_sell_animal_health_assets/> Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html= [Posted in FML 6410]
