Acambis to look at transforming deals: Fellner

By Mark Potter

LONDON (Reuters) - Veteran biotechnology executive Peter Fellner has joined Acambis Plc (ACM.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to help the vaccine maker buy in new medicines and also look at larger, potentially transforming transactions, he said on Wednesday.

Fellner, who built up British biotech group Celltech through a string of acquisitions before its sale to UCB UCBBt.BR in 2004 and has since overseen a series of deals as chairman of Vernalis Plc (VER.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), joined Acambis as a non-executive director earlier this month.

"You can have bolt-on deals ... and you can have other deals which are truly transforming," Fellner told the Reuters Biotechnology Summit in London. "I would imagine the (Acambis) board would be interested in both."

Acambis has been given a big boost by contracts to supply the U.S. government with smallpox vaccine and analysts have long been looking for it to use the revenues it has received to buy in more medicines and create a sustainably profitable business.

Acambis chief executive Gordon Cameron told the summit on Tuesday that the firm was looking to buy medicines and possibly small companies, and also saw the logic of mergers between small-to-medium sized biotech companies.

"Many of them (European biotechnology companies) are sub-critical in terms of constructing really self-sustaining businesses," Fellner said on Wednesday.

"I think I would put Acambis, and Vernalis for that matter, in that category."

SURGE IN VACCINES M&A  Continued...