Aurora Cannabis to Acquire MedReleaf in Largest Marijuana Deal Yet

​Two large healthcare deals took place last week, with Zoetis buying Abaxis for $2 billion and Eli Lilly acquiring AurKa Pharma for $575 million. In other news, Aurora Cannabis will acquire MedReleaf in the largest marijuana deal ever. 

• Marijuana company consolidation is increasing in Canada. Last Monday, Aurora Cannabis (TSE: ACB) agreed to acquire MedReleaf (TSE: LEAF) for approximately $3.2 billion Canadian ($2.5 billion USD) in stock. After the acquisition, Aurora will have capacity to grow 570,000 kilos, or 1.26 million pounds, of cannabis a year in its nine facilities in Canada and two in Denmark.

• Eli Lilly (NYSE: LILY) announced it would acquire AurKa Pharma in a deal that could fetch $575 million. AurKa was formed by TVM Capital Life Science after Eli Lilly previously sold a drug under development to TVM in 2016. The drug, AK-01, is in early stage trials to treat types of solid tumors.

• On Thursday, PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) announced it would acquire iZettle, a European startup to sells mobile credit card readers and other payment platforms, for $2.2 billion. It is anticipated that the Swedish company will bring the PayPal platform to over 500,000 stores in 11 new countries.

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• Zoetis (NYSE: ZTS) is set to purchase Abaxis (NASDAQ: ABAX) for $2 billion. Abaxis develops point-of-care blood analyzers to medical and veterinarian markets.