NJ-Based Knoll Pharmaceuticals Sold to Chicago's Abbott Labs for $7 Bil

MT. OLIVE, NJ-Just when you thought the M&A activity had quieted down within New Jersey’s pharma industry, another big deal comes along. North Chicago, IL-based Abbott Labs has acquired Knoll Pharmaceuticals, based here, from BASF AG, Germany’s biggest chemical concern. The price tag in the all-cash deal is $6.9 billion.

The impact on Knoll’s New Jersey and worldwide operations isn’t immediately clear but figures to sort itself out between now and the end of the first quarter of ’01, when the contract is slated to be completed pending regulatory review. Knoll has almost 800 employees at its Mt. Olive HQ, plus another 200 at a manufacturing facility in nearby Whippany, NJ. Worldwide, the company has 10,700 employees, according to a company insider.

The two companies are expected to put together an integration plan over the next few months, according to the Knoll executive, “but Abbott will ultimately make the decisions.”