Horizon Therapeutics, which has its U.S. headquarters in Deerfield, is in talks with several large pharmaceutical companies that may be interested in buying the business.
Horizon confirmed the discussions Tuesday in a news release, saying its board is in “highly preliminary discussions” with Amgen, Janssen Global Services and Sanofi.
The talks “may or may not lead to an offer being made for the entire share capital of the Company. There can be no certainty that any offer will be made for the Company,” Horizon said in the release.
A company spokesman declined to comment beyond the news release.
Horizon’s stock was up nearly 31% in after-hours trading.
Horizon, which is based in Ireland, was founded in 2008 with only a few workers but had more than 1,200 employees as of 2020. The company sells orphan drugs, which are medications for rare diseases, and drugs to treat rheumatic diseases.
In 2020, Horizon decided to relocate its U.S. headquarters from Lake Forest to the old Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. building in Deerfield — a three-building, 650,000-square-foot campus visible from I-94. At the time, it said it planned to move about 500 employees to that Deerfield office.
In 2017, Horizon acquired River Development Corp., which was working on a medication to treat thyroid eye disease, for $145 million plus potential future payments contingent on the drug’s approval and sales. That thyroid eye disease drug, Tepezza, is now Horizon’s bestselling drug. Horizon sold nearly $491 million worth of Tepezza during the three months that ended Sept. 30.
Horizon’s second-best-selling drug is Krystexxa, a drug for uncontrolled gout.
Horizon saw its net sales drop to $925.4 million during the last full quarter, compared with the same time last year when net sales were $1.03 billion. It also, in that same quarterly report, increased full year 2022 net sales guidance to $3.59 billion to $3.61 billion.
