Not many people may have heard of Idenix Pharmaceuticals, a company with ＄500k total revenue last year; however, it is still considered minute compared to other pharmaceutical companies. To those who are aware, Idenix had developed a treatment for hepatitis C, a disease that some 3 million Amer¬cans are infected with. However, Idenix was severely in the red, with a net loss of ＄122.3 million on just half a million of revenue. To the shareholders who may have held on to Idenix stocks because they simply had no incentive to sell them, the only problem now is that they didn’t have enough stocks. Merck, a Fortune 500 company and a front runner of hepatitis C treatments with Gilead Sciences, agreed to buy out Idenix for ＄3.85 billion, or about ＄24.50 per share in cash. Idenix had closed at ＄7.23 on a Friday, and on the subsequent Monday morning, the stock more than tripled. In the lucrative race¬to find cures for hepatitis C, Merck wished to stay competitive. Gilead had produced Sovaldi, a once-a-day pill that cures from 80% to 90% of its patients, and Merck had nothing comparable to such a pill. Now, together with Idenix’s hepatitis C medicines and Merck’s experimental drugs, it may be enough to go toe-to-toe with Gilead for the most lucrative combination of drugs. Ideally, Merck wishes to lower the cost of the hepatitis C treatments (Gilead’s Sovaldi requires about ＄84,000 for the entire treatment, resulting in the malign of the company). Gilead, in the first full quarter after Sovaldi’ s development, had total revenue of upwards of two billion dollars, and by making the treatment accessible to those who cannot afford Sovaldi, Merck may exceed the gargantuan amount of revenue Gilead had acquired. All in all, Merck’ s agreement to buy Idenix is just the beginning. There’s a long road ahead of Merck to that two billion dollar quarter. However, with the acquisition of Idenix, they’ve taken some steps towards developing their own Sovaldi.