Dealmakers have always flipped companies. Lately, they've been flipping something else: aging pharmaceuticals.
Flippers tend to seize on drugs with little competition, said Stephen Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota. “They're taking advantage of a dysfunctional market.”
The formula's simple: obtain licensing rights to a medicine, boost the price, put the rights back on the market and pocket a profit. Investors got Actimmune for $55 million, for example, and sold it for $660 million 27 months later.
