Merck & Co.'s announcement yesterday that it will acquire Cambridge-based Idenix Pharmaceuticals for $3.85 billion could be a four-way coup — for the two companies, as well as the Boston hedge fund that backed Idenix and the tens of millions of people afflicted with hepatitis C.
Idenix's hepatitis C drugs, combined with Merck's experimental medicines, could amount to a lucrative, faster, more effective cure of the blood-borne virus.
"Idenix has a nucleotide (antiviral) that Merck doesn't," said Jason Kolbert, an analyst at Maxim Group. "If you're a hepatitis C company and you don't have a nucleotide, you really need one."
Merck spokeswoman Pamela Eisele said Idenix will retain its name, "but with regard to its employees and facilities, no decisions have been made."
Merck is willing to pay a "significant premium" — a per-share bid more than triple Friday's closing price for Idenix — because the hepatitis C market is so large, Kolbert said, and pharmaceutical companies are willing to invest billions of dollars in drugs that look promising because the returns can be so lucrative.
Gilead Sciences' groundbreaking new drug Sovaldi, for example, has already made back billions of dollars for that company.
The hope, he said, is that any combo drug from Idenix and Merck will be equal to Sovaldi, a once-a-day pill that cures 80 to 90 percent of patients, without the need for interferon injections and without side effects.
Yesterday's announcement caused shares of Idenix to close at $23.79, up 229 percent, and also was a big win for Baupost Group, which owns a 35 percent stake in the company.
The hedge fund did not return a phone call seeking comment. But by the end of the first quarter, it reportedly had more than 53 million shares, which could translate into a profit of more than $900 million.
New Jersey-based Merck has been a major player in hepatitis C since acquiring Schering-Plough in 2009. In 2011, the FDA approved two drugs in a class called protease inhibitors, Merck's Victrelis and Incivek from Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Those work by blocking an enzyme needed for copying the virus, and boost the cure rate to about 75 percent. But they require patients to take a dozen pills a day and still endure flu-like side effects, making the race to develop a combination therapy without injections and debilitating side effects a high priority.
Herald wire services contributed to this report.
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