Britain's biggest drugmaker AstraZeneca is in discussions to take over its US rival Bristol Myers Squibb in a deal that would create a near-$400bn (£300bn) pharmaceutical group. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
AstraZeneca, run by Pascal Soriot, its longtime chief executive, is the second-biggest listed company in the UK, with a market value of nearly £196bn before the news broke. BMS, headquartered in Princeton and known for its cancer treatments, is worth $133bn.
A tie-up would be one of the biggest-ever pharmaceutical deals and create the world's fourth-largest drugmaker by market value. The talks were first reported by the Financial Times.
AstraZeneca's FTSE 100-listed shares plunged more than 7% to a low of £116.46 in early trading in London, as investors reacted to news of the talks.
A deal would expand AstraZeneca's presence in the US, where it is already investing $50bn in research and manufacturing by 2030. It completed a direct listing of its shares on the New York stock exchange in June, and a deal with BMS could revive fears of a shift away from the UK.
Chris Beauchamp, a chief market analyst at the investment platform IG, said: "Companies saying one thing and doing another is a well-trodden path, and AstraZeneca joins in with the reports of a proposed alliance with Bristol Myers Squibb, having only said a recently that it didn't need M&A to hit its targets.
"Though a rare example of a big UK firm buying a smaller US firm is something to warm the cockles of the British heart, it risks the departure of yet another national champion, and in any case the pair's large cancer divisions as a major hurdle to a successful deal. BMS has struggled since 2023, and some Astra shareholders will wonder at the need to do expensive M&A when their shares are doing so well."
While talks have been held in recent months, there is no certainty that a deal will be concluded, according to sources.
AstraZeneca, headquartered in Cambridge, was formed in 1999 from the merger of the Swedish company Astra AB and the UK company Zeneca Group. Zeneca had been spun off from Imperial Chemical Industries five years earlier.
AstraZeneca's share price has more than quadrupled during Soriot's leadership, when it overtook its UK rival GSK in size.
Under Soriot, the FTSE 100 company fended off a hostile bid from its US rival Pfizer in 2014 that valued AstraZeneca at almost £70bn. He then successfully rebuilt the company's drug pipeline with cancer immunotherapies – drugs that harness the body's immune system to fight tumours – and other treatments.
A week ago, AstraZeneca said it was confident of hitting its growth targets for 2030, by which it expects to achieve $80bn (£60bn) in annual sales, up from $59bn last year, despite the surprise failure of Wainua, one of its leading heart disease drugs in development. Soriot said the company must move at "Chinese speed" to ensure it does not fall behind competitors.
A few days later, BMS beat Wall Street expectations with its second-quarter results and lifted its 2026 outlook. It made revenues of $12.97bn during the quarter, up 5% on a year earlier, excluding currency movements.
Its UK research team is based at Moreton on the Wirral peninsula near Liverpool, while its commercial head office for the UK and Ireland is in Uxbridge.
AstraZeneca declined to comment. BMS has been contacted.