Merck & Co, Inc NYSE:MRK yesterday announced it has entered into a definitive agreement with Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc NASDAQ:ISPH under which Merck will acquire Inspire, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing ophthalmic products.

Under the agreement terms, Merck will commence a tender offer for all outstanding common stock of Inspire at a price of $5 per share in cash, a 26% premium to the closing price of Inspire’s common stock on April 4, 2011. The transaction debuts a total cash value of approximately $430 million and has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

Merck & Co, Inc NYSE:MRK on April 05, 2011 decreased 0.33% with the closing price of $33.16. The overall volume in the last trading session was 9.26 million shares. Its fifty two week range was $30.70-$37.97. The total market capitalization remained $102.23 billion.

MRK is above its 52 week low with 12.82% and remote negatively from 52 week high price with 10.82%. MRK last month stock price volatility remained 1.16%. In its share capital MRK has 3.08 billion outstanding shares and among them 3.05 billion shares have been floated in market exchange. MRK stock institutional ownership remained 74.57% while the insider ownership included 0.03%.

The MRK current stock price is moving forward from its 20 days moving average with 2.01% and remote positively from its 50 days moving average with 1.88%. Company’s current year earnings per share decreased with 95.13% while its quarter performance remained -7.71%. Company’s beta coefficient recorded 0.70. The beta coefficient is a measure that helps in identifying the risk associated with securities trading.

Merck is a global healthcare leader working to help the world be well. Merck is known as MSD outside the United States and Canada. Through the prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and consumer care and animal health products, company works with customers and operate in more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. Company also demonstrates its commitment to increasing access to healthcare through far-reaching policies, programs and partnerships.

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