A cross-border, cross practice team from leading global law firm Baker McKenzie has advised Bayer AG on all legal aspects of an agreement to sell the cancer treatment Stivarga® (regorafenib) to Grünenthal. The purchase price amounts to up to EUR 375 million. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the required regulatory approvals. Closing is expected in late 2026 or early 2027.
Stivarga® is an oral multikinase inhibitor used to treat certain advanced cancers. The medicine is indicated for selected patient groups with metastatic colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal stromal tumors and hepatocellular carcinoma, and is approved and available in more than 90 markets worldwide. Over the past ten years, more than one million patients worldwide have been treated with Stivarga®.
Led by M&A partner Daniel Dehghanian and Antitrust & Competition partner Jan Kresken, both based in Dusseldorf, the team included:
- Corporate/M&A: Dr. Jan Gutsche (senior associate, Düsseldorf)
- Pharma: Dr. Martin Altschwager (partner), Anna Fischer (associate, both Frankfurt)
- Antitrust & Competition: Dr. Nicolas Kredel (partner), Dr. Florian Kotman (counsel) (both Düsseldorf), Creighton Macy (partner), Marisa Dieken (senior associate), Evan Harris (senior associate), Kirk Crawford (senior paralegal, all, Washington, D.C.), Oksana Simonova (partner), Volodymyr Nazarchuk (associate, both Kyiv), Seonho Kim (partner, Seoul)
- IP/IT: Patrick Wilkening (partner), Yannick Filoda (associate, both Düsseldorf), Anela Winzig (associate, Frankfurt)
- International Commercial & Trade: Anahita Thoms (partner), Frederik Alexander Dörr (associate, both Berlin), Chiara Marinozzi (Partner, Milan)
“We are very pleased to have had the opportunity to support Bayer in this significant transaction as part of the implementation of its value-oriented portfolio strategy, and we thank the highly specialized, multidisciplinary in-house team for the trust they placed in us and for their excellent collaboration,” commented Daniel Dehghanian, lead partner for the transaction at Baker McKenzie.
Baker McKenzie is a global transactional leader, with more than 2,500 deal practitioners across 40+ countries advising on complex and cross border transactions. With one of the largest Healthcare & Life Sciences teams of any international law firm, the Firm combines deep sector knowledge and a global platform to execute high stakes matters at the intersection of innovation, regulation and M&A. Baker McKenzie also recently advised Bayer on its USD 2.45 billion acquisition of Perfuse Therapeutics.
Baker McKenzie's Antitrust & Competition Practice is one of the largest in the world with more than 365 practitioners across 70+ offices and 40+ countries. Consistently recognized as a global leader, the group handles a comprehensive spectrum of competition law matters, including merger control, antitrust litigation, government investigations, criminal and civil enforcement actions, compliance counseling and strategic antitrust advice. The Firm's integrated global platform enables clients to navigate increasingly complex antitrust and competition issues across jurisdictions and industries.