Shire Pharmaceuticals extends ViroPharma tender offer

Shire Pharmaceuticals has extended its offer for the common shares of ViroPharma until midnight New York time on January 9th 2014.

The offer had previously been set to expire on December 26th and the company has made no other changes to the terms and conditions of the tender.

According to Shire, approximately 50,217,259 common shares had been validly tendered but had yet to respond to the offer as of 18:00 on December 26th. 

This represents just over three-quarters (76 per cent) of the outstanding shares in ViroPharma, though the company noted this does not include 2,128,506 common shares that are guaranteed to be delivered within the following three trading sessions on the NASDAQ index.

Shire filed the tender on November 25th, pledging to pay $50 (30.24 pounds) per share for the firm in an effort to expand its portfolio of rare disease drugs. This values the company at $4.2 billion.