J&J buys 18 pc stake in Crucell

Crucell had previously been in takeover talks with US drugmaker Wyeth, but talks were broken off in January after Pfizer moved in to buy Wyeth.

Johnson & Johnson and smaller rival Abbott are already the most diversified of the large US and European healthcare companies, but both continue to snap up more companies and products — often at distressed prices due to the economic downturn.

Crucell said it issued 14.6 million new Crucell shares to Johnson & Johnson, which paid about a 30 per cent premium based on the average price of Crucell shares in the past 35 days. That led to a price per share of about Euro 20.63. The transaction will have an estimated dilutive impact of $0.02 to $0.04 on Johnson & Johnson’s 2009 adjusted earnings per share.