AstraZeneca to buy Britain’s CAT

Anglo-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca announced on Monday that it had agreed to buy Britain-based Cambridge Antibody Technology, in a deal valuing the group at 702 million pounds (9.6 billion kronor).

Published: 15 May 2006 10:38 CEST

AstraZeneca, which already owns 19.2 percent of CAT, will pay 567 million pounds (7.8 billion kronor) for the remaining stock, a statement said. It has agreed to pay 1,320 pence per share in cash.

That represents a 67-percent premium on CAT’s closing price on Friday.

The statement added that CAT directors have unanimously recommended the offer.

“CAT will become central to AstraZeneca’s plans to establish a major international presence in the research and development of biological therapeutics,” the statement said.

CAT makes drugs using antibodies, the body’s natural defences against infections.

Norway to send 200,000 AstraZeneca doses to Sweden and Iceland

Empty vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

“I’m happy that the vaccines we have in stock can be put to use even if the AstraZeneca vaccine has been paused in Norway,” Health Minister Bent Høie said in a statement.

The 216,000 doses, which are currently stored in Norwegian fridges, have to be used before their expiry dates in June and July.

Sweden will receive 200,000 shots and Iceland 16,000 under the expectation they will return the favour at some point.

“If we do resume the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, we will get the doses back as soon as we ask,” Høie said.

Like neighbouring Denmark, Norway suspended the use of the AstraZeneca jab on March 11 in order to examine rare but potentially severe side effects, including blood clots.

Among the 134,000 AstraZeneca shots administered in Norway before the suspension, five cases of severe thrombosis, including three fatal ones, had been registered among relatively young people in otherwise good health. One other person died of a brain haemorrhage.

On April 15, Norway’s government ignored a recommendation from the Institute of Public Health to drop the AstraZeneca jab for good, saying it wanted more time to decide.

The government has therefore set up a committee of Norwegian and international experts tasked with studying all of the risks linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which is also suspected of causing blood clots.

Both are both based on adenovirus vector technology. Denmark is the only European country to have dropped the AstraZeneca
vaccine from its vaccination campaign, and said on Tuesday it would “lend” 55,000 doses to the neighbouring German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

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