After treading the commercial path alone for the past year and change, Revance Therapeutics, maker of the Botox rival Daxxify, has agreed to fly the Crown Laboratories flag.
Revance and Crown—a privately held skin care company with multiple marketed products of its own—are merging, the companies said in a release Monday.
Under the deal, which has won the unanimous blessing of Revance’s board of directors, Crown will enter a tender offer to acquire all outstanding Revance stock for $6.66 per share in cash, for a total deal value of $924 million.
The purchase price marks a premium of 89% over Revance’s closing market price on Aug. 9.
"Revance has an impressive track record in developing innovative aesthetics offerings that will complement Crown's innovative line of skincare products,” Jeff Bedard, founder and CEO of Crown, said in a statement. “As a combined company, we have the opportunity to create a comprehensive portfolio of high-growth products for all stages of life, and we will be committed to investing in education, training, and practice support for aesthetics providers across the United States."
Once the merger wraps, Crown figures it will be one of the “leading global aesthetics and skincare companies.” The combined company will boast a portfolio of more than 10 skin health and aesthetic brands. Crown markets an RHA filler collection, SkinPen for microneedling, PanOxyl for acne, Blue Lizard sunscreen and StriVectin anti-aging products.
Additionally, with their forces combined, Revance and Crown anticipate having “one of the largest distribution footprints in skincare."
Together, the companies say they will have access to more than 10,000 medical professionals, mass and specialty retailers, club retailers and online sales channels. Additionally, the companies will wed their manufacturing operations.
The companies said they expect the deal to close by the end of the year. Once the deal closes, Revance will be wholly owned by Crown and cease to trade publicly on the Nasdaq.
Despite some regulatory hiccups along the way, Revance’s hotly anticipated Botox rival Daxxify won its first approval to temporarily remove moderate to severe glabellar (frown) lines in September 2022.
Like Botox, Daxxify is an injected neuromodulator. What sets the drug apart, however, is its reliance on peptide exchange technology.
This in turn gives Daxxify an impressive staying-power edge over its ubiquitous AbbVie rival.
While Botox injections last for three months, Daxxify can sustain results for half a year and has worked for up to nine months in some patients, the company said at the time of its first approval.
Because Revance figured it could tap into what it called the “prestige market,” the company initially slapped its botulinum toxin treatment with a premium price tag. That strategy failed to bear fruit, though, and roughly a year after Daxxify’s initial green light, Revance said it would slash the price of is drug in a bit to "accelerate market expansion."
While the move appeared to spook investors at the time, analysts at William Blair favored the strategy, calling price the “lone roadblock to wider adoption” of Daxxify.
Meanwhile, Revance isn’t relying on Daxxify’s aesthetic perks alone.
Last summer, the drug snagged its second FDA approval, this time to treat cervical dystonia in adults. Cervical dystonia causes the neck muscles to contract involuntarily, leading to abnormal movements, pain and awkward posture of the head and neck.
The condition, for which Botox is considered a first-line treatment, affects roughly 60,000 people in the U.S.
At the time, Revance pegged the total U.S. therapeutic neuromodulator market opportunity for Daxxify at $2.5 billion, including $345 million in cervical dystonia specifically.
For all of 2023, Daxxify generated $84 million, according to Revance’s full-year earnings report.
In 2024’s second quarter, the drug brought home net revenue of $28.7 million, a 27% increase over the sum it made over the same stretch in 2023.
For all of 2024, Revance expects to general total net product revenue of $280 million.