Alphabet is poised to welcome the autumn harvest. Ruth Porat, the web search giant’s chief financial officer and a former technology investment banker at Morgan Stanley, will move into a new role next month that includes overseeing “other bets,” an eclectic collection of experimental projects. It’s a good time to cull and rethink the cash-burning portfolio. A shift is already underway at Verily Life Sciences, the health-data cruncher that generated some $560 million in revenue last year, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. The sum accounted for more than half the $1 billion contributed by the non-search division. In 2022, Alphabet’s top

Ginkgo Bioworks is promising a future that’s grown rather than built. That is the story underlying the company’s $17.5 billion valuation in a deal with special purpose acquisition company Soaring Eagle Acquisition. Ginkgo engineers cells that help do tasks and has enormous potential in industries from plastics to cannabis. Bets on such innovative platforms can pay off, as pharmaceutical company Moderna’s success shows. But there are also plenty of duds, and the deal bakes little room for error. Using biological products to make things like clothes detergent more effective isn’t new. But the company co-founded and run by Jason Kelly

Royalty Pharma deserves its pharmacy discount card. The private equity specialist, which buys up revenue streams on potential blockbuster drugs, persuaded investors to value it at $16.7 billion, making its initial public offering priced on Monday the biggest on a U.S. stock exchange this year. The firm led by Pablo Legorreta has ballooned in size, as it has largely operated in a buyers’ market with limited competition. Yet concentration and rising political risk warrant a big discount to more diversified peers like Blackstone. As with all good private equity stories, Royalty Pharma’s revolves around buying assets with leverage from sellers

Moderna is putting stock-sale opportunism to the test. The biotech developing a potential Covid-19 vaccine this week joined a rapidly growing list of companies selling more shares to investors. It makes sense, given the market rebound and some issuers’ need for cash. But the rush to sell by more speculative companies like Moderna should give buyers pause. The pandemic has had a severe effect on the economy, but markets have disconnected. The S&P 500 Index has jumped by a third since its low towards the end of March. Companies that need cash, those worried about delayed recovery and firms whose

“You’ve got the brains, I’ve got the brawn, let’s make lots of money.” That’s Blackstone’s proposition for drugmakers like Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. The private-equity group is sinking up to $2 billion into the biotechnology company, including buying half the firm’s rights to future revenue from a cholesterol drug still under regulatory review. It’s a way to match Blackstone’s bulging wallet with Alnylam’s hefty costs while limiting exposure to volatile equity markets. Developing a new drug typically costs nearly $3 billion, according to a 2014 estimate by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. The size of the necessary bets

While the world is riveted by the rapid spread of Covid-19, Gilead Sciences’ $4.9 billion deal for cancer startup Forty Seven shows that regular death goes on. The roughly $90 billion biotechnology giant has seen its market value rise nearly 15% since the start of February thanks to an experimental antiviral treatment which is being tested against the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease. But the hefty 96% premium Gilead is paying for Forty Seven is a reminder that the fight against the grim reaper is a long-term affair. The price is reasonable enough for a deal of this kind.

The premiums needed to seal biotechnology acquisitions have always been high, but they’ve reached the stratosphere this year. Astellas Pharma’s $3 billion deal to buy U.S. firm Audentes Therapeutics at a 110% premium is the fifth time this year a biotech company has been sold at more than twice its stock-market valuation. Buyers will have to continue paying up to convince sellers they’re not surrendering at fire-sale prices. It’s an intriguing dynamic because investor pessimism about standalone firms, especially in speculative but promising areas such as gene therapy where Audentes operates, is making target companies look cheap. That’s encouraging bigger

Every new arrival in New York City has a story to tell, whether it’s a sidewalk mugging or a fleecing by apartment brokers. Amazon is getting a bit of both. One month after picking New York for half of its second headquarters, the $810 billion e-commerce giant is already getting bashed by local politicians and unions. Jeff Bezos’s firm stands to get as much as $3 billion in tax credits and grants for building its facility in the city. Most of those are offered under existing state and city programs and require the firm to meet or exceed its planned

Takeda Pharmaceutical may take a turn at Shire’s risky M&A strategy. The $42 billion Japanese drugs group is mulling a bid for $45 billion takeover machine Shire. There’s not much overlap, and uncertainties hang over key businesses. But Shire is cheap, and its shareholders exasperated. While that may appeal to Takeda boss Christophe Weber, it’s also a warning. Takeda prospered for decades in its cozy domestic market. A declining population, government-reimbursement cuts and increased competition from cheap generic pills have forced Takeda and its peers to look abroad for growth. That’s a difficult prescription to fill. Takeda is large enough