Press Release

Horizon Therapeutics to Be Acquired by Amgen for Approximately $28 Billion

December 12, 2022

San Diego – December 12, 2022 – A Cooley team advised Horizon Therapeutics, a specialty biopharmaceutical company, on its agreement to be acquired by Amgen. The approximately $28 billion merger would represent the third-largest all-cash transaction in the pharmaceutical sector in history and the biggest healthcare deal of 2022.

M&A partners Barbara Borden, Rama Padmanabhan and Rowook Park and corporate partner Kay Chandler, as well as associates Lindsey O’Crump, Edmond Lay, Vivian Tsai and Melissa Meza, led the team advising Horizon.

Partners Ross Eberly (labor), Todd Gluth (tax), Jacqueline Grise (antitrust), Alexander Israel (antitrust), Rishab Kumar (M&A), Chadwick Mills (public companies), Phil Mitchell (regulatory), Alessandra Murata (compensation & benefits), John Paul Oleksiuk (trademark), Michael Tollini (debt finance), Charity Williams (life sciences) and Elizabeth Anne Wright (regulatory) provided valuable advice. Special counsel David Burns, Stella Sarma and Matt Silverman, and associates Ajay Athavale, Justin Kisner, Joe Mandry and Addison Pierce, also played key roles in the transaction.

Cooley has worked with Horizon since 2008 on all aspects of its business, from corporate matters, securities transactions, debt transactions and business development transactions – including M&A and strategic partnering – to antitrust and regulatory counseling, compensation and benefits, employment, patent, tax, and litigation on securities, commercial and IP matters.

Cooley has represented Horizon in all its significant matters, including taking the company public in 2011 and multiple acquisitions that built its product portfolio. A Cooley team advised Horizon in an Irish tax inversion transaction with Vidara in 2014 and acquisition of its flagship product, TEPEZZA, from River Vision in 2017. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Horizon focuses on improving patients’ lives by identifying, developing, acquiring and commercializing differentiated products that address unmet medical needs.

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