AstraZeneca Accused of Forcing $3 Billion Fire Sale on Viela (1)

AstraZeneca Plc is facing claims it bullied Viela Bio Inc., in which it held a 27% stake, into an underpriced $3 billion sale to another drug company to avoid potential antitrust concerns about its own $39 billion acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The lawsuit by a former Viela shareholder challenges its $53-a-share sale to Horizon Therapeutics Plc in 2021—a move AstraZeneca portrayed as a divestiture—just before the British pharmaceutical giant bought Alexion. AstraZeneca had spun off Viela in 2019.

“AstraZeneca wielded its power” over Viela to engineer “an economically coercive exit plan to further its own interests,” according to ...