AstraZeneca Shares Drop, Bristol Myers Squibb's Climb After Merger Talks Reports — Update

By Adria Calatayud

AstraZeneca shares fell sharply and Bristol Myers Squibb's climbed, after media reports that the two drugmakers held merger talks.

London-listed shares in AstraZeneca were down 6.4% in European morning trading. Meanwhile, Bristol's shares were up 5.5% in U.S. premarket trading.

The stock moves came after the Financial Times reported, citing unnamed sources, that AstraZeneca held discussions with Bristol about a tie-up in recent months, which could lead to a deal in the near future or fall apart.

An AstraZeneca spokesman declined to comment, while Bristol didn't respond to a request for comment.

A potential deal between AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb would create a pharma giant with a combined market value of roughly $400 billion and more than $100 billion in annual sales.

Many big pharmaceutical companies have been on the hunt for deals this year seeking to restock their drug pipelines ahead of the loss of patent protection for several of the industry's top-selling medicines in the coming years. But they have mostly targeted acquisitions with price tags below $10 billion and refrained from big-ticket mergers.

The report caught analysts by surprise, and some of them cited potential antitrust issues and challenges encountered by past large pharma mergers as hurdles to a potential deal.

Analysts at Jefferies wrote in a note to clients that they were perplexed by the news, saying it wasn't clear why AstraZeneca would go after the deal. Bernstein analysts said in a separate note that a merger seemed unlikely to go ahead.

Cambridge, England-based AstraZeneca is pursuing a target to reach $80 billion in revenue by 2030, up from $58.74 billion last year, and said as recently as last week that it was on track to do so.

AstraZeneca has benefited from growing sales of its cancer drugs in recent years and moved to expand into rare diseases through its $39 billion acquisition of Alexion, completed in 2021, and into obesity. The company fended off a hostile takeover approach from Pfizer more than a decade ago, and has been looking to expand its presence in the U.S. It upgraded its U.S. listing earlier this year and last year committed to invest $50 billion in the country by 2030.

Meanwhile, Princeton, N.J., drugmaker Bristol is preparing for the patent expiration of its two biggest products, blood thinner Eliquis and cancer drug Opdivo, in the coming years.

Bristol made one of the biggest ever acquisitions in the pharma industry in 2019, its purchase of Celgene for about $74 billion, and also bought Karuna Therapeutics for $14 billion in a deal completed in 2024.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 03, 2026 06:05 ET (10:05 GMT)