Pfizer to buy King Pharmaceuticals for US$3.6bn
Deal will improve position of Pfizer in pain relief market
Pfizer is to pay US$3.6bn in cash for King Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Bristol, Tennessee, to improve its position in the pain relief market.
New York-based Pfizer will pay US$14.25 per share, which represents approximately a 40% premium over King's closing price on Monday.
The boards of both companies have approved the transaction.
King's portfolio includes a prescription pharmaceutical business focused on delivering new formulations of pain treatments designed to discourage misuse and abuse; the Meridian auto-injector business for emergency drug delivery, which develops and manufactures the EpiPen and is a long-term supplier to the US Department of Defense; and an animal health business.
Pfizer said the deal would create ‘one of the leading broad portfolios for pain relief and management in the biopharmaceutical industry, offering currently marketed opioid and non-opioid products, as well as a pipeline spanning stages of clinical development’.
In addition to Pfizer's current treatments for pain – which include Lyrica and Celebrex – King will bring Avinza, the Flector Patch and the recently launched Embeda, the first approved opioid pain product with design features intended to discourage misuse and abuse, to the deal. King also has other abuse-resistant pain products in development.
The combination of Pfizer’s and King’s portfolios in the pain relief area ‘is highly complementary and will allow us to offer a fuller spectrum of treatments for patients across the globe, who are in need of pain relief and management,’ said Jeffrey Kindler, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive officer.
King’s chairman and chief executive Brian Markison added: ‘By bringing together King's capabilities in new formulations of pain treatments with Pfizer's commercial, medical and regulatory expertise, global strength in patient services and reimbursement, and global scale and resources, we believe Pfizer can build on our foundation and take our business to the next level.’
Pfizer anticipates the deal will result in initial cost savings from operating expenses of at least US$200m by the end of 2013.