BioCentury
ARTICLE | Strategy

Building bulk in vaccines

May 28, 2002 7:00 AM UTC

The acquisition of profitable vaccine company Rhein Biotech N.V. by Berna Biotech AG will create Europe's sixth largest biotech company with a market cap in the region of E820 million ($755 million). Last week's deal solves a financial problem for Rhein, which has two products in Phase III trials, but only E24.2 million ($22.3 million) in cash. For Berna, which will be the surviving entity, the deal adds to its currently limited innovative capability.

The combined company's biggest remaining weakness is its lack of entre into the U.S. market...