Back in July, Teva ($TEVA) agreed to pick up Allergan's ($AGN) generics business for $40.5 billion. To get that deal past regulators, though, it's going to have to divest some products--and word is it could be a lot of them.
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| Teva CEO Erez Vigodman |
The Israeli generics giant is in the process of jettisoning about $1 billion worth of assets to avoid antitrust hurdles for the transaction, which it's hoping to close by the first quarter of 2016, Reuters reports. According to the news service's sources, those assets span the United States, Europe and the Middle East, and they'll be sold off in a series of processes that should wrap up by early next year.
The U.S. divestitures, in particular, should be complete by January, the company figures, and it's already fielded offers from multiple copycat drugmakers, Reuters says.
Among them could be Mylan ($MYL), which recently lost a hostile takeover battle with Perrigo ($PRGO)--a target some think it may have initially gone after in April as a defense against Teva, which pursued it before inking the Allergan pact. As Nexthera Capital's Chief Investment Officer, Ori Hershkovitz, recently told Bloomberg, Teva's forthcoming asset-shedding could be a good opportunity for Mylan.
Meanwhile, Allergan is waiting for the Teva acquisition to wrap up before it can move on to other things. Last week, the Dublin drugmaker agreed to merge with Pfizer ($PFE) in a $160 billion deal that will help the New York giant move to Ireland and leverage Allergan's lower tax rate.
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