Alkermes appears to have successfully hit back with a counteroffer to buy sleep disorder drugmaker Avadel, following Lundbeck’s last-minute bid to acquire the latter.
The latest offer saw Alkermes put up to $2.37bn on the table for Avadel – a sweetened price from its original offer of $2.1bn. Avadel has accepted the offer, deeming the Lundbeck offer no longer superior
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Alkermes’ latest offer comprises a total transaction consideration of $22.50 a share, with the potential for an additional payment of $1.50 a share upon the potential approval of Avadel’s lead asset, Lumryz (sodium oxybate), in idiopathic hypersomnia (IH).
If the transaction is successful, Alkermes will gain the rights to Lumryz, which was granted US approval for the treatment of cataplexy or excessive daytime sleepiness in narcoleptic patients in 2023. Since then, the drug also won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for paediatric patients aged seven years and up.
According to analysts at GlobalData, Pharmaceutical Technology‘s parent company, Lumryz is estimated to make $625m in 2031, meaning the drug could become one of the company’s best-selling assets. In 2024, Alkermes’ number one seller was drug dependence treatment Vivitrol (naltrexone), which pulled in $457m for the company.
Avadel previously agreed to a merger deal with Alkermes in October 2025. The agreement, which was assumed to be a done deal, was then intercepted by Danish pharma Lundbeck via an unsolicited bid, offering up to $2.4bn to buy the company. Avadel’s board previously called the offer “superior”.
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By GlobalDataIn light of Alkermes’ revised bid and following conversations with its legal counsel and financial advisers, Avadel’s board has determined that the Lundbeck proposal is no longer a “company superior proposal”. This is due to the terms of the contingent value right (CVR) included in the Lundbeck offer, which was “determined to be unlikely to be achieved”.
Pharma hands-on in M&A push
The bidding war between Alkermes and Lundbeck looks familiar to the recent back-and-forth between Pfizer and Novo Nordisk, which saw the latter make a last-minute counteroffer to acquire obesity biotech Metsera.
At the time, Metsera viewed this as a “superior” proposal to Pfizer’s original offer, though the biotech later changed its tack. This came after a bidding rally, which ensued following Pfizer’s choice to file a lawsuit against Metsera and Novo Nordisk. The suit alleged that the two companies had breached Pfizer’s previous contractual merger agreement..
Pfizer eventually prevailed, securing a $10bn deal to acquire Metsera this month. Similar to the Alkermes-Lundbeck showdown, Metsera chose to go with Pfizer due to legal considerations.
Across the pharma sector, GlobalData Healthcare’s senior business fundamentals analyst Alison Labya noted that there has been a general uptick in pharma M&A activity, with 2025YTD experiencing a 42% year-on-year growth in M&A deal value. The total deal value for 2025 thus far has already surpassed the same figure recorded for the whole of 2024, which stood at $100bn.
Meanwhile, Erela Dana, director for neurology and immunology at GlobalData, highlighted the potential Avadel acquisition as an uptick in a space that was previously “relatively quiet”.
Dana said: “We’re now seeing increasing activity across multiple indications, as companies look to enter the narcolepsy, insomnia and IH markets.
“As there is more competition in the narcolepsy and insomnia indications, IH may now be seen as a more untapped indication.”
