Bristol-Myers Squibb assesses baby formula sale

Bristol-Myers Squibb is reportedly seeking potential bidders for a planned sale of its baby formula business.

According to a report in the Financial Times (FT), the company has approached firms including Danone, HJ Heinz, Kraft, Nestle and PepsiCo as buyers for Mead Johnson, which has a value of between $7 billion and $9 billion (3.4 billion pounds and 4.4 billion pounds).

The paper claims that the firm has also investigated the option of a possible sale to its rivals in the pharmaceutical industry, including GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson and Novartis.

“Bristol-Myers Squibb has made informal approaches, but it has not yet started a sales process,” sources close to the situation have reportedly said.

In response to these reports, the company has not issued a comment, but said that it will continue to evaluate its strategic options relating to Convatec and Mead Johnson.

The FT notes that the newly-appointed chief executive of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Jim Cornelius, is seeking to divest parts of the company to facilitate a strategic transition to making the firm a focused maker of speciality pharmaceutical products.

In September 2007, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that infants who have been fed with its Enfamil LIPL formula for the first 17 weeks of life showed the same visual and IQ outcomes as those who are breastfed.