American Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. and Santa Monica-based American BioScience Inc. said on Tuesday that the merger between the two companies has been completed to create a new Los Angeles-based company, Abraxis BioScience Inc.
On Wednesday, Abraxis common stock began trade on the Nasdaq National Market under the ticker symbol “ABBI.” Schaumburg, Ill.-based American Pharmaceutical, a public company, was the largest shareholder of privately held American BioScience. The all-stock deal was valued at $4.1 billion when it was announced in November.
On its first day of trading, Abraxis opened at $29.41 and ended the day down 1.8 percent to $28.85. The company is scheduled to report consolidated first quarter results on April 28.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Abraxis chief executive officer and chairman of the board, is the largest individual shareholder of both American Pharmaceutical and American BioScience, both of which he founded in the mid 1990s. American Pharmaceutical went public in 2001.
Abraxis combines American Pharmaceutical’s track record in manufacturing complicated generic drugs, plus a valuable proprietary cancer treatment called Abraxane, with American BioScience’s biotech drug pipeline.
“With the merger complete, our efforts are now focused on leveraging our R & D;, manufacturing and distribution expertise … to create important new therapies for critically ill patients,” Soon-Shiong said in a statement.
Analysts earlier estimated that post-merger, Soon-Shiong and a handful of American BioScience insiders would control around 87 percent of shares of the combined company. Minority shareholders had a 29 percent stake in American Pharmaceutical.
Abraxis’ board of directors includes current American Pharmaceutical board members David Chen, Dr. Stephen Nimer, Leonard Shapiro and Kirk Calhoun. Sir Richard Sykes, former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline plc, is expected to join the board on or around the date of the next annual meeting of the stockholders.
According to agreement announced on Nov. 28, American BioScience shareholders and employees received a distribution of 86,096,523 shares of common stock in addition to the 47,984,160 shares previously owned. Abraxis BioScience now has approximately 158,961,321 shares outstanding on a fully diluted basis.
In connection with the merger, Abraxis has obtained a $450 million three-year unsecured senior credit facility that will be used for general corporate purposes. It replaced an existing $150 million credit facility.
