Merck & Co justifies paying up for Acceleron

Once Acceleron added clinical validation with sotatercept to a promising launch for its first drug, Reblozyl, it became an obvious takeover target. The big question today is why it should have fallen not to Bristol Myers Squibb but to Merck & Co.

It was Bristol, after all, that inherited a key deal with Acceleron – one of the few Celgene transactions to have truly delivered – and this should have given it first-mover M&A advantage. Bristol did feature in early speculation over who would buy Acceleron, but appears to have been unwilling to part with the $11.5bn that Merck today paid up.