Holy price tag, Pfizer…

Well, they don’t call it Big Pharma for nothing.

After spending a year watching Ozempic hog the spotlight, the pharma final boss (+1.2%) finally said “hold my syringe.” Following months of lawsuits, corporate catfights, and FTC babysitting, Pfizer outbid Novo Nordisk with a $10 billion mic drop…  adding Metsera to its arsenal in the war for America’s waistline.

Pfizer bumped its offer to $86.25 per share, narrowly topping Novo’s final bid and managing to charm both regulators and Metsera’s board. The deal is set to close after the November 13 shareholder vote… unless the FTC wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

This whole thing started when Pfizer (still salty from missing the first GLP-1 gravy train) made an offer for Metsera back in September at around $47.50 a share. Novo Nordisk quickly joined in, turning what should’ve been a quiet acquisition into an auctioneer’s dream.

What followed was a full-blown bidding war. Novo raised its offer not once, but twice… first to an even $10 billion, then again with roughly the same valuation but dressed up in fancier terms. That’s when Pfizer channeled its inner Louis Litt and lawyered up, suing both Novo and Metsera for allegedly trying to “capture and kill” an emerging American rival. (Translation: stop being a monopoly hog, Denmark.)

But the real knockout punch came from the FTC, which quietly warned that a Novo-Metsera tie-up could violate U.S. antitrust laws. That call sent Metsera running straight into Pfizer’s open arms like a biotech version of The Notebook. That said, let me make one thing clear… Metsera doesn’t have an Ozempic rival ready for shelves tomorrow. Its obesity drugs are still in clinical trials, and it’s blowing cash like the federal government.

So why spend $10 billion? Because Pfizer has been wandering the obesity wilderness ever since its own GLP-1 candidate flopped hard. This deal buys it a second shot (and maybe a little dignity) in a market expected to hit $150 billion by 2030.

(Source: Stat10)

But analysts are already raising an eyebrow at the math. Bernstein’s Courtney Breen said Pfizer would need to pull in $11 billion in revenue by 2040 just to justify the price tag… nearly double what Metsera’s current projections suggest.

Novo’s CEO Mike Doustdar threw some subtle shade before walking away, telling reporters, “If Pfizer wants it, they better dig deep in their pockets.” They did. And now Novo’s pretending to be totally fine about it, saying the decision “aligns with our financial discipline and shareholder value.” Translation: “We didn’t want it anyway.”

Pfizer gets the comeback headline it desperately needed. Novo gets to stay in its Danish castle counting Ozempic money. And Metsera’s shareholders get to cash out on what might be the most profitable FDA waiting game in biotech this year.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.