Aug 24, 2016 2 min read

TRENTON, N.J. – Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. is continuing its shopping spree with a fourth acquisition since the April collapse of its planned $160 billion megadeal to buy rival Allergan PLC, then move its headquarters – on paper – to Allergan’s base in lower-tax Ireland.

In its second deal this week, New York-based Pfizer said it is buying rights to Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC’s portfolio of approved and experimental antibiotic and antifungal pills – a move to boost Pfizer’s business in one of its priority areas. The deal is valued in excess of $1.5 billion, including rights to sell the medicines in most countries outside the United States, royalties and other payments.

The acquisition indicates a thawing of relations between the two companies, barely two years after London-based AstraZeneca fought off Pfizer’s hostile takeover attempt.

Pfizer planned that $119 billion acquisition as a so-called “tax inversion,” enabling Pfizer to slash its U.S. tax bill by moving its nominal headquarters, but not its corporate offices or executives, to England.

The tax inversion strategy was hot in corporate America for a few years, but it’s cooled down since the U.S. Treasury Department in early April issued new tax rules to block the biggest U.S. drugmaker from becoming a corporate citizen of Ireland.

Allergan is technically based in Dublin, but it’s the result of a tax inversion merger and operates from Parsippany, N.J.

Under the deal announced Wednesday, AstraZeneca will receive an upfront payment of $550 million. Pfizer will get rights to some medicines in development and approved ones, including Merrem, for treating bacterial meningitis and serious infections of the skin and stomach; Zinforo, for pneumonia and complex skin and soft tissue infections; and Zavicefta, a combination antibiotic the European Union just approved for treating serious bacterial infections.

On Monday, Pfizer announced a $14 billion deal to buy San Francisco-based Medivation, which develops pills for treating various cancers.

On Aug. 1, Pfizer announced a deal worth $150 million upfront, and potentially another $495 million, to acquire what Pfizer didn’t already own of Bamboo Therapeutics Inc. of Chapel Hill, N.C.

In June, Pfizer completed the $5.2 billion acquisition of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc., which could get a new eczema drug, crisaborole, approved by January.