Karl Thiel

This is a good old-fashioned product-slash-platform deal in the sector.

What Sedara does is, most directly, what Merck is buying right now is an influenza

drug that shouldn't be subject to year-to-year variation.

It's a different way of going after influenza.

You can see why that would be a relatively big deal.

There's a lot of flu shots given out every year.

Yeah.

I think it's interesting on a number of levels.

One is just that usually, M&A in the pharma sector is just dominated by oncology, and it still is.

But we've seen a lot more start going to these broader health issues around obesity and around, in this case, infectious disease, so influenza.

The other reason I think it's super interesting is just

that it came at a huge premium.

I'll say.

Yeah, $9.2 billion all-cash deal, 109% premium to where Sedar was trading before that.

I just think that that gets at continuing some mispricing in the sector.

You expect an M&A deal to come at some premium, but that's a pretty big one.

Yes, it helps fill the gap.

The Keytruda patent cliff is a major, major deal for Merck, and it's no mystery to anybody who invests in the stock.

Is it the reason the premium is so big?

Not necessarily.