Curium US Holdings LLC has agreed to acquire Lantheus Holdings, Inc. for $102.50 per share in cash, plus up to an additional $12 per share if certain sales targets are hit — bringing the total deal value to as much as $8 billion. Reuters reported the announcement on August 3, 2026.

The deal has two parts. The first is a fixed cash payment of $102.50 per share, paid when the deal closes. The second is a contingent value right, or CVR — a mechanism that grants shareholders up to $12 more per share if Lantheus hits specified sales benchmarks after the deal closes. CVRs are common in pharmaceutical mergers and acquisitions when the target company has a drug pipeline or sales trajectory with potential upside that the buyer doesn't want to pay for upfront but is willing to share later. Think of it as a performance bonus: the seller gets extra money, but only if the business delivers.

The timeline from first approach to signed deal is tight. In May 2026, Reuters reported that Lantheus was weighing a sale after receiving a takeover offer from Curium Pharma — backed by private equity — valued at roughly $7 billion. About two and a half months later, the two sides reached a definitive agreement with a headline figure that grew by about $1 billion, or roughly 14%, from that initial bid.

The gap between the May figure and the August agreement reflects the back-and-forth of negotiations. The increase from roughly $7 billion to as much as $8 billion could stem from competitive pressure during the auction, better visibility into Lantheus's pipeline or commercial performance in the interim, or simply the standard distance between an opening offer and a final agreed price. The CVR structure may have been the bridge: by deferring up to $12 per share to contingent payments, Curium could offer a higher headline number while protecting itself if Lantheus's revenue falls short.

For shareholders, the all-cash upfront portion matters. Unlike stock-for-stock deals — where the exchange ratio exposes investors to the acquirer's share price between signing and closing — a fixed cash price locks in the return, subject to deal completion risk. The contingency means the total return isn't fully set at signing. Shareholders have to weigh the likelihood that the sales targets will be met when deciding whether to hold through closing or sell in the market at a discount to the blended headline value.

The transaction still needs standard regulatory approvals, including antitrust clearance, before it can close. No closing date has been specified in the reported materials.

Curium, backed by private equity, has been buying companies in the radiopharmaceutical space — drugs that use radioactive material for diagnosis or treatment. Lantheus's portfolio in diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals fits a broader wave of dealmaking in nuclear medicine, where targeted radioligand therapies (drugs that deliver radiation directly to cancer cells) have drawn heavy investment from both strategic buyers and financial sponsors. The $8 billion ceiling places this transaction among the larger recent deals in the radiopharma sector.

For Lantheus shareholders, the variables to watch between now and closing are deal completion risk, the regulatory timeline, and — once the deal closes — the specific sales thresholds attached to the CVR. The structure means the realized value per share will range from $102.50 to $114.50 depending on commercial performance, and the market's trading price in the interim will reflect a probability-weighted blend of those outcomes, adjusted for time value and deal risk.

The broader context here is about pace and structure. The jump from a roughly $7 billion initial approach to a finalized agreement of up to $8 billion in about ten weeks is a useful data point on how quickly take-private deals can move when both parties are motivated and the valuation gap can be bridged through structured contingent payments. The use of a CVR to reconcile buyer and seller price expectations is a well-established template in life sciences M&A, and its deployment here follows that pattern closely.