AbbVie Inc

AbbVie has a diversified offering of drugs for the treatment of conditions related to endocrinology, cardiovascular, and rare disease.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ (VRTX) business model includes revenues in three areas: products, royalties, and collaboration. There’s significant variability in royalty and collaboration revenues.

AbbVie’s metabolic and hormonal portfolio offers drugs such as AndroGel, Creon, and Synthroid to address various medical conditions.

Since Humira’s launch in the US market in 2002, Abbott Laboratories and its spin-off AbbVie have aggressively expanded the drug’s approved indications.

AbbVie’s business model involves generating revenues through the sale of pharmaceutical products, which target some of the world’s most serious diseases.

With a market capitalization of $100.7 billion, AbbVie is a major US biopharmaceutical company. AbbVie competes with Amgen, Gilead Sciences, and Bristol-Myers Squibb .

As it is still relatively difficult to introduce biosimilars, Amgen plans to enter the US market by leveraging experience of biosimilars in the European market.

Amgen offers various nephrology drugs such as Epogen, Aranesp, Sensipar, and Mimpara. Both Epogen and Aranesp have been facing squeezed profits from tight competition.

Celgene has entered the inflammation and immunology drug market, as well as the cell therapies market, in order to be less dependent on MM drugs.

The forward PE ratio for Sanofi is ~15.1x for 2015, and ~18.1x for the industry.

In 2014, Biogen earned about 27% of its total revenues from international markets such as Canada, Europe, and emerging economies.

The biotechnology sector is witnessing intense competition with big pharmaceutical companies entering into collaborations and mergers and acquisitions with biotechnology companies.

There’s no complete cure for rheumatoid arthritis, so most RA drugs are part of disease-management therapy. Humira accounts for 23.5% of the RA market share.

After 2012, the biotechnology industry (IBB) had a period of solid growth, mainly driven by novel scientific inventions and aggressive commercial distribution.

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (BMY) immunoscience franchise deals with medicines that help defend the body against invading pathogens like bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells.

The biotechnology industry will witness 12 blockbuster drugs worth $67 billion in annual revenues lose their patents by 2020. This is the so-called patent cliff.

Kraft’s (KRFT) and Heinz’s portfolio of brands are highly complementary, which is a big reason for the Kraft–Heinz merger.

The Kraft–Heinz merger isn’t a typical risk arbitrage deal because you can’t arbitrage a spread. Before the deal, Kraft was trading at $62.40 a share.

The Kraft–Heinz merger entity will maintain Kraft’s current dividend, and management anticipates it will grow.

The first place arbitrageurs look to get a handle on antitrust risk is the 10-K, where companies often disclose the names of competitors.

Other important merger spreads include the deal between Time Warner Cable and Comcast as well as the merger between Pharmacyclics and AbbVie.

Kraft has a non-solicitation agreement with a fiduciary out. This means that Kraft could discuss another merger if approached by another suitor.