Bayer aims to buy animal-health spinoff

Bayer is on the verge of bolstering its animal-health business with one or more of the veterinary units on the market because of pharma megamergers, the Financial Times Deutschland reports. It's not a huge surprise; Bayer execs said last month during an analyst meeting that they'd been mulling growth-by-acquisition in animal health. And as antitrust regulators pore over the Pfizer-Wyeth merger and Merck-Schering deal, both market-watchers and the companies themselves have suggested that animal-health sales could be on the way.

Merck has said it's considering getting out of Merial [1], the animal-health venture it shares with Sanofi-Aventis. Or it might jettison Schering-Plough's animal health unit, Intervet, which brings in about $3 billion annually. Pfizer has indicated that it's considering selling [2] off chunks of its vet-med business, and/or Wyeth's as well. Together, Wy-Pfi's animal health operations bring in about $4 billion annually, the FTD says.

Apparently, Bayer has tried to nab Intervet before; FTD reports that the company negotiated for the company with its then-owner, Akzo Nobel, but failed to come to terms. But that prior interest doesn't necessarily put Schering's animal business at the top of Bayer's list. CEO Werner Wenning [3] has said that he's not interested in any major deals, so that could make Pfizer/Wyeth's piecemeal sell-off more attractive. 

- check out the Reuters news [4]
- read the FTD story [5] (in German)

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