Feuerstein's Biotech-Stock Mailbag

Citibank biotech analyst Yaron Werber has been tracking the quest to acquire Biogen Idec as closely as anyone. I don't think he's the axe in the stock, necessarily, but his published notes offer as good a guide to what's happening as I've seen.

Echoing the current buzz, Werber says Pfizer(PFE Quote) is still likely in the hunt, although other potential bidders -- he mentions Roche and Johnson & Johnson(JNJ Quote) -- may have dropped out (whether they were really serious about a bid, or not, is up for debate).

Werber also believes a European pharmaceutical company could be in the mix, in part because favorable exchange rates make a U.S. acquisition attractive. Sanofi-Aventis(SNY Quote) is often mentioned in this role.

The biggest hurdle to any deal, not surprisingly, is price, Werber says. Biogen Idec isn't going to be cheap, even for a company like Pfizer. A $23 billion acquisition, give or take a billion dollars, is a big pill for any company to swallow.

AstraZeneca(AZN Quote) has been widely mocked for overpaying to buy Medimmune, so any deal for Biogen Idec has to make strategic, as well as financial, sense.

Interestingly, Werber doesn't think Genentech(DNA Quote) and its partnership with Biogen Idec for the drug Rituxan is going to be an impediment to a deal. In what the Citigroup analyst describes as a game of "high-stakes poker," Genentech risks losing rights to Rituxan altogether if it seeks full ownership of the drug when there's a change of control at Biogen Idec.