Actavis shells out $100M for Thai generics maker in bid for Southeast Asia growth

Actavis has bagged its latest catch. Fresh off last month's deal to buy Forest Laboratories in a $25 billion deal, the generics maker ($ACT) forked over a much smaller amount--$100 million--to buy a small generics company in Thailand.

The deal will vault Actavis into the top 5 generics makers in the country, according to a company statement. Together, the companies will have more than three dozen products on the market, and Silom's customer network, salesforce and manufacturing capacity will add to Actavis' Thai footprint.

Actavis now markets about a dozen products in Thailand, and is waiting for regulatory approval on 9 more. Silom boasts 25 marketed products, with more than 4,400 hospitals, clinics and drugstores in its customer Rolodex. The Thai company also has a manufacturing facility that can turn out 660 million pills and 47 million sterile drug units a year.

It's Actavis' latest move to beef up in emerging markets. Thailand is a small but fast-growing prospect, with current pharma sales of about $4.3 billion, the company said, citing Business Monitor figures. That's expected to more than double to $9 billion by 2022, the market research firm has said.

And a bigger base in Thailand means more support for expansion in the Southeast Asia region, Actavis CEO Paul Bisaro said in a statement. The Silom deal "demonstrates our commitment to be a leading specialty pharmaceutical company in Southeast Asia, and will provide the combined business with an even more significant and united presence in the fast-growing Thai pharmaceutical market," Bisaro said.

Actavis has been on a buying binge for several years now, with some big deals to Bisaro's credit. As CEO of Watson Laboratories, he engineered the $5.9 billion buyout of Actavis in 2012, and adopted his quarry's name. Then last year, Actavis nabbed Ireland's Warner Chilcott in an $8.5 billion stock swap. In between, Actavis has snapped up a series of smaller companies as well.

- read the Actavis release

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