AstraZeneca Plc, the maker of the Nexium ulcer medicine, agreed to buy U.S. biotechnology company MedImmune Inc. for $15.2 billion in cash to gain flu vaccines and an antiviral medication for babies.

Investors in Gaithersburg, Maryland-based MedImmune will get $58 a share, London-based AstraZeneca said today in a Regulatory News Service statement. That’s 21 percent higher than MedImmune’s April 20 closing price of $48.01. MedImmune put itself up for sale after pressure from shareholders, including Carl Icahn.

AstraZeneca has had setbacks with four experimental products in the last year. MedImmune makes the FluMist influenza medicine, and the Synagis treatment for infant respiratory infections. Synagis, MedImmune’s biggest product, brought in $1.1 billion last year, and the biotechnology company said April 9 that first- quarter sales of the medicine increased 9 to 10 percent.

“While the company has a blockbuster franchise in Synagis, the franchise is mature,” said Joel Sendek, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets in New York, in an investment note on April 12, the day MedImmune said it would consider a sale. “The flu vaccine franchise is not profitable, and the pipeline, though promising, is in early stage development.”

Including net cash of about $340 million, the purchase price is about $15.6 billion, AstraZeneca said today.

AstraZeneca is reliant on its top three drugs, Nexium, Seroquel for schizophrenia and the Crestor cholesterol medicine, for profit growth. The company, which reported first-quarter results, said today that it will drop the experimental heart treatment AGI-1067 after the product failed to meet goals in a study.

Posted: 04|23|07 at 7:48 am. Filed under: News.