(Reuters) -Merck is nearing a roughly $10 billion deal to buy lung disease-focused biotech Verona Pharma, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Merck would pay $107 per American depository share for Verona, the report said, citing three people familiar with the matter.
Merck and Verona didn’t immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Reuters couldn’t immediately verify the report.
Merck has relied on its best-seller Keytruda, which had nearly $30 billion in sales in 2024, to fuel its growth for years but the drug’s patents will begin to expire in 2028. In response to that, the company has embarked on a spree of deals to diversify revenue streams.
Last month, FT reported that Merck has held talks to buy Swiss biotech MoonLake Immunotherapeutics for more than $3 billion.
In March, Merck said that it has signed an up to $2 billion licensing agreement for a heart disease drug with Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals.
Verona is a biopharmaceutical company working on developing therapies for the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases. Its first commercial product, Ohtuvayre, is used in the treatment of COPD, a chronic lung condition.
Shares of Merck, valued at over $204 billion as of Tuesday, are down by over 18% this year while Verona’s shares closed at $86.9 on Tuesday at a market cap of about $7.39 billion, according to LSEG data.
Verona reported total net revenue of $76.3 million in the first quarter of 2025.
(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
