(Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson duked it out in a bidding war for Global Blood Therapeutics Inc. days before Pfizer won with a $5.4 billion offer this month, according to people familiar with the matter. 

An entity identified in a regulatory filing Friday as “Company A” had kicked off the process. Company A was J&J, the people said, asking to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. 

The proxy shows that J&J spent more than two months vying for Global Blood against Pfizer and one other potential buyer before being outbid at the last minute. The bidding war underscores how biotech companies with later-stage assets have become prized takeover targets for Big Pharma, even as volatile markets upend the broader dealmaking landscape.

GBT would have been Joaquin Duato’s first major deal since taking over as J&J chief executive officer at the start of the year.

Representatives for J&J and GBT declined to comment.  

Pfizer agreed on Aug. 8 to buy GBT for $68.50 per share, clinching a company whose therapy for sickle-cell disease is viewed as one of the more promising drugs to treat the inherited disorder that in the US mainly afflicts Black people.

That deal was set in motion about two months earlier, when J&J proposed an offer of $55 per share in cash. Later that month, GBT’s bankers contacted Pfizer and three other potential buyers, two of whom declined to pursue a deal, according to the filing. GBT talked for weeks with Pfizer and J&J and a third party. 

By the final week of July, J&J and Pfizer were neck and neck, having both increased their offers to $60 per share. At the end of the month, GBT asked them to submit their best and final offers and to be ready to executive a deal by the end of the following business week -- or 12 p.m. New York time Aug. 5. 

In the meantime, the news leaked. Bloomberg News reported on Aug. 3 that GBT was drawing takeover interest from several large pharmaceutical companies. 

That Friday, hours before GBT’s board was due to meet, J&J and Pfizer each boosted their offers: J&J sweetened its bid to $61.50 and asked for three days of negotiating exclusivity. Pfizer increased its price to $67.50 and said it could execute a deal immediately. J&J later said it’d be willing to raise its offer to $65 after learning from GBT CEO Ted Love that its proposal was too low. 

GBT’s board met at noon Pacific time to discuss the talks. They decided to seek another set of revised “best and final offers” from J&J and Pfizer. 

After the meeting, GBT asked J&J to increase its offer and J&J said $65 was likely the highest price they would go. Representatives for Pfizer also told GBT’s bankers that $67.50 was their best.

The board had been torn: Pfizer had offered more but J&J’s agreement was more favorable to the company than Pfizer’s “with respect to regulatory matters and the closing conditions,” according to the proxy.

Things changed that night: Pfizer boosted its offer to $68.50 and said it was prepared to execute an agreement by the next day, a Saturday. Representatives for GBT and Pfizer negotiated the final terms of the deal over the weekend. They signed the merger agreement that Sunday, and the deal was announced the following day.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.