Savient to divest Israeli operations and subsidiary
Savient Pharmaceuticals is exploring a potential divestiture of its Israeli business operations including its subsidiary, Bio-Technology General (Israel), possibly as early as the first half of 2005.
Savient Pharmaceuticals is exploring a potential divestiture of its Israeli business operations including its subsidiary, Bio-Technology General (Israel), possibly as early as the first half of 2005.
The potential divestiture is expected to include existing biopharmaceutical product licensing arrangements outside of Israel such as the human growth hormone, Tev-Tropin, licensed in the US to Teva Pharmaceutical, and would include products currently manufactured in Israel such as the sodium hyaluronate (HA) based product out-licensing candidates Nuflexxa (pending final FDA approval in the US), Euflexxa in Europe and BioLon in the US.
'We are very pleased to be moving forward with the execution of our previously announced plans to reposition the company to focus on the development of our product pipeline. A successful divestment of our Israeli business would streamline our operations and provide the financial resources to advance our two primary drug candidates currently in Phase II clinical development,' said Christopher Clement, president and chief executive officer of Savient. He continued: 'Ultimately, we believe these actions will increase the likelihood that the full value of our assets will be realised by our shareholders.'