AstraZeneca Plc, struggling to develop new medicines, agreed to buy U.S. biotechnology company MedImmune Inc. for $15.2 billion in cash to gain flu vaccines and an antiviral treatment for babies.

Investors in MedImmune will get $58 a share, AstraZeneca said today. That’s 21 percent more than MedImmune’s April 20 closing price of $48.01. MedImmune, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, put itself up for sale on April 11 under pressure from billionaire Carl Icahn and other shareholders.

AstraZeneca needs new products after four experimental drugs failed in the past year. In MedImmune, the London-based drugmaker is getting the FluMist influenza vaccine, the infant lung treatment Synagis and 45 products under development. AstraZeneca is paying twice as much relative to sales as Germany’s Merck KGaA spent last year to buy the biotechnology company Serono AG.

Posted: 04|23|07 at 6:23 pm. Filed under: News.