Big Pharma companies aren't the only drugmakers diversifying these days. Like its behemoth brethren, Endo Pharmaceuticals is snapping up a privately held generics company--Qualitest Pharmaceuticals--for about $1.2 billion in cash. The deal will broaden Endo's reach in treatments for pain, but with off-patent drugs rather than branded ones.
It's Endo's third recent deal as the company works to fill the expected gap in sales when its lead drug Lidoderm, which is used to treat shingles pain, goes off patent in 2015. That med brings in about $700 million a year. Last month, Endo made a deal to buy Penwest Pharmaceuticals, and in May bought device maker HealthTronics.
The combined company will have 46 potential generics, including urology drugs, cancer meds, and blood-pressure treatments, Reuters reports. Endo says it hopes the revenue growth of the combined generics business to be at least 15 percent over the next two years.
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