Novartis to sell animal health business to Bayer

Source: Biovalley 2013-12-4 according to people familiar with the matter, Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, is ready to sell its animal health business, and has disclosed its books to Bayer and other competitors The transfer fee of the business may exceed 3 billion euros (about 4.1 billion US dollars) Bayer is seeking to consolidate its position as a diversified life sciences company, while Novartis is considering the disposal of non core assets that lack the scale to become a global leader Potential bidders include Bayer, Eli Lilly and Boehringer, who are currently conducting a due diligence assessment of Novartis' animal health business, the person said Bayer CEO marijn Dekkers revealed at Tuesday's Pharmaceutical Conference in London that he intends to expand his animal health business, but declined to comment on whether he is considering a bid for Novartis animal health assets Lilly did not immediately comment on the comment Novartis and bringer ingelham declined to comment Global leader: at present, zoetis, Pfizer's animal health business, ranks first in the global animal health field Merck & Co, Sanofi, Lilly, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis rank second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh respectively The sales of animal health businesses of the last six companies in 2012 were 3.4 billion and 28 billion respectively Billion, 2 billion, 1.7 billion, 1.3 billion and 1 billion US dollars If Bayer acquires Novartis animal health business, it will increase Bayer's ranking in the global animal health market from 5th to 3rd or 4th The potential sale of Novartis's animal health business will be part of an ongoing review of its group operations, which last month sold its blood transfusion test unit to Grifols in Spain for $1.68 billion Novartis has hired Goldman Sachs to assist in its review, the person said Goldman declined to comment