EU blesses Watson's buyout of Actavis

Regulators in the EU gave their blessing Friday to the $5.53 billion buyout of Swiss drugmaker Actavis by Watson Pharmaceuticals ($WPI), Reuters reports. The Actavis buy will make Watson the world's third-largest generics maker. It also gains international reach, with Actavis' European operations hardly overlapping its own. The company has said it will look to get $300 million in savings from the combined company within three years. Geographical diversification is one of Watson's goals, as it girds for the end of the patent cliff--and its influx of big-time generic products--in a few years. In a statement, the European Commission said, "The investigation showed that despite significant changes in the competitive situation in some of the markets, a sufficient number of credible and strong competitors will continue to exercise a competitive constraint on the merged entity." Story | More