Market report: City chatter puts GlaxoSmithKline in $9 billion race for US drugs firm United Therapeutics

Could Emma Walmsley be preparing to make her first acquisition as boss of GlaxoSmithKline?

The pharma giant, off 2.5p at 1525.5p, is running the rule over a US drugs company called United Therapeutics, City sources said.

United, which is listed on Nasdaq with a $5.5 billion (£4.2 billion) market value, has treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a condition where arteries in the lungs can become blocked, leading to high blood pressure and heart failure.

The company was founded and run by Martine Rothblatt, a transgender entrepreneur who quit her satellite radio business Sirius XM to start United in 1996 in an effort to save her daughter, a PAH sufferer. She bought Glaxo’s PAH treatment, which it had deemed commercially unviable.

Glaxo, which is thought to be being advised by Lazard and Citi, might be among the contenders, but it would face stiff competition from rivals, the sources added.

California-based Gilead Sciences, which has been advised by Bank of America Merrill Lynch on previous deals, is thought to be the frontrunner for United in what could become an auction process. Other names in the frame include Swiss giant Novartis.

The sources said United is likely to fetch up to $200 a share, meaning any bidder could pay around $8.7 billion.

Walmsley, who started as Glaxo’s boss in April, confirmed last week she is keen for smaller bolt-on acquisitions of United’s size. However Glaxo also indicated it is looking to get out of rare diseases rather than buy more.

Glaxo and United declined to comment.

A fall from the housebuilders on the back of concerns that the Help to Buy scheme might be scrapped prevented the FTSE 100 from gaining ground at the end of the week.

The index was up only 0.06 points at 7474.83 as traders geared up for the US jobs report despite gains from Royal Bank of Scotland after its results and the mining sector, which gave Anglo American a 21.41p, or 1.7% fillip to 1264.5p.

ConvaTec, the wounds dressings firm, continued to slide (off 4.3p to 285p) after yesterday’s announcements that profits fell and chief financial officer, Nigel Clerkin, was departing.

Brent crude slipped 37 cents, around 0.7%, to $51.64 on concerns about a global oil glut. It hurt mid-cap players such as Tullow Oil, down 5.7p to 174.3p, and Cairn Energy, off 5.1p at 173p.

Investors in cash-strapped stamps and collectables business Stanley Gibbons were left licking their wounds again after the £2.4 million sale of its Dreweatts auction house to Millicent fell through. Sshares fell 0.7p or 7% to 8.8p.

Elsewhere, GetBusy made light work of its debut on AIM. The document management software business, which was spun out of Australia’s Reckon, raised £3 million in its float at 28.3p but traded higher at 34.9p on its first day of dealings.