The Spanish parliament has recently approved legislation that will make INN prescribing mandatory, thus transforming Spain into a fully unbranded market. In reality, things have been moving in this direction for some time, with individual provinces forcing the GPs in their area to prescribe...
Watson goes Greek and acquires Specifar
Another day, another deal. Watson surprised the market on Wednesday by announcing that it was buying Specifar, a family-owned Greek contract manufacturer, for €400m. Specifar, which had turnover of €85m in 2010, generates 72% of its sales outside Greece, where it supplies a broad...
Valeant passes the time by buying Sanitas
Valeant is back on the acquisition trail, announcing today that it is paying approximately €314m for the Lithuanian pharma company Sanitas. Sanitas, which reported turnover of €98m in 2010, generates 50% of its revenue in Poland (where it owns Jelfa, a specialist in liquids...
Another Japanese company goes into generics as Takeda buys Nycomed
The announcement last Thursday of Takeda’s purchase of the majority of the assets of Nycomed follows days of press speculation and thus comes as no surprise. According to the official press release, Takeda will pay €9.6n for most of Nycomed, leaving its four private...
Teva buys Taiyo and comes closer to market leadership in Japan
Teva’s acquisition of Taiyo, officially announced yesterday, did not come as any surprise given that it had been reported in the Japanese press some days previously. However, we now have the terms of the deal, which are that Teva will pay $460m to acquire...
‘Game-changing’ Cephalon acquisition boosts Teva’s branded business
In the short term, this deal can hardly fail, as Cephalon’s strong cash flow and very high profitability will mean that it is earnings accretive from day one. Consolidating it will take Teva’s branded revenues to around $7bn ($2.8bn from Cephalon and the remainder...
Prospects dim for Teva in the oral MS market
Both Teva and the analyst community at large were wrong-footed this week as Biogen suddenly released additional details of the results of its phase III DEFINE study on BG-12, an oral treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS), following its initial presentation at the American Academy...
A new season of industry-bashing opens in Hungary
Teva and Proctor and Gamble (P&G) jointly announced today that they intend to create a joint venture in OTC. Owned 51% by P&G and 49% by Teva, the jv will encompass the whole of Teva’s global OTC business (which is split roughly 50:50 between...
Spanish market data for 2010 shows the big getting bigger
According to IMS data published in the Spanish trade paper El Global, the retail generics market in Spain grew by 15% in 2010 to reach a total value of just over €1bn. Net of discounts, we believe that the figure is closer to €800m...
Valeant goes back to its roots as it buys PharmaSwiss
Valeant announced today that is paying €350m (plus a possible further €30m) to acquire PharmaSwiss, a privately-owned company based in Zug. According to Valeant’s CEO, J Michael Pearson, PharmaSwiss is a ‘generics and OTC’ player operating in 19 countries and with a broad portfolio...