The inside story at Allergan (AGN) is now firmly public, as the company’s plans to divest itself of certain product categories and acquire another firm were confirmed over the weekend.
What was rumored has become fact
This weekend Allergan publicaly confirmed that it will sell its generic-drug business to Teva Pharmaceuticals Inc. (TEVA) for $40.5 billion and the company will purchase Naurex, a developer of antidepressant drugs, for $560 million.
On July 22 ValueWalk reported on a secret meeting that discussed a sales and marketing integration and aggressive acquisition strategy, citing unnamed sources. Then on July 24, Bloomberg reported Allergan was planning on separating its low priced generic business from its patented and higher-priced branded drug portfolio, again citing unnamed sources.
Then over the weekend, it all became public.
Allergan pulls the trigger with Naurex on suicide prevention
Allergan formally announced the acquisition of Evanston-IL based Naurex, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company whose two lead products, antidepressants Rapastinel GLyX-13 and NRX-1074, are reported to work in hours rather than weeks and are used in suicide prevention. The Naurex acquisition adds to Allergan’s existing offerings in the sales category, a point Allergan CEO Brent Saunders made clear.
“The acquisition of Naurex is a great fit for Allergan and a compelling and exciting investment. We expect Naurex will enhance Allergan’s mental health portfolio and build on our strategy to lead in this important therapeutic area,” Saunders said in a statement, then pointed to the sales pipeline. “Naurex’s unique pipeline comprises compounds that utilize a new mechanism to target areas of significant unmet medical need in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), including severe and/or treatment-resistant depression. These highly differentiated compounds will immediately bolster our exceptional mental health pipeline.”
