Hints and tips:
...It was once a Wall Street darling, executing an inversion deal with Actavis and other aggressive acquisitions. As its growth prospects slowed, investors grew restless....
...A former Bausch & Lomb executive, the 49-year-old built Allergan through a succession of deals that began in 2013 when the company he ran, then called Actavis, bought Ireland-headquartered Warner Chilcott...
...Actavis Holdco U.S., Inc.; Actavis Pharma, Inc.; Ascend Laboratories, LLC; Apotex Corp.; Dr....
...Allergan received a 10 per cent stake, or 100m shares, in Teva last year after it agreed to sell its generics business Actavis to the Israeli drugmaker last year....
...But Mr Holford said this seemed unlikely: “The inversion story feels tired now that the Treasury has twice thwarted large-cap pharma deals.”...
...That transaction transformed the company, then known as Actavis, from a manufacturer of generic copycat medicines into a branded drugmaker. “Brent is a bold guy,” says one investor....
...“We would expect Big Pharma’s current level of R&D spending to become a luxury that investors no longer tolerate,” wrote a group of McKinsey consultants in 2011....
...Lyrica was initially developed as a treatment for epilepsy but its patent for this use expired last year, allowing Actavis to launch a cut-price version using the medicine’s generic name, pregabalin....
...Yet even after a $40bn deal, the pharma sector remains unsettled. Allergan will realise $36bn in cash and shares (after taxes) that it could use for its own dealmaking....
...The battle ended with Allergan securing a huge premium from “white knight” bidder Actavis, the generics pharma company, which paid $70.5bn to buy the company in a deal that closed in March....
...It is just over a year since Brent Saunders became chief executive of Allergan, then known as Actavis, but he has changed the company beyond recognition....
...But Allergan’s combination last year with Actavis — itself newly enlarged through a dizzying series of deals — created a company that fitted his two main criteria....
...Meanwhile, the $70bn takeover of Allergan by Actavis earlier this year completed the transformation of the company from a maker of low-margin copycat drugs to a leader in profitable “speciality” medicines...
...Yet Actavis spends a much smaller proportion of its revenues on discovering new drugs compared with other big pharma groups, preferring instead to use its cash to buy or license medicines that are already...
...Most recently it bought Botox maker Allergan for $70bn and ditched the company’s previous name, Actavis....
...Actavis has used its Irish domicile in a similar way, highlighting the increased financial firepower held by companies in lower-tax jurisdictions compared with US-based rivals....
...Chief executive Brent Saunders says the rout in pharma shares could help. “I think over time, if it stays like this, then it should benefit a cash buyer,” he says....
...Valeant tried to buy Allergan in a bitter takeover war last year, but lost out to Actavis, which acquired the group for $70bn before adopting its name....
...A deal, which one person said could be announced within days, would be the latest blockbuster agreement in the pharma sector....
...The ascent of Actavis, based in the US but domiciled in Ireland, speaks to the rise of a different category of drugs company, loosely known as “specialty pharma” by investors....
...Actavis, the US pharma group, had hoped to lessen the impact of the introduction of a generic version of Namenda, its Alzheimer’s drug, by securing a so-called “hard switch”....
...Actavis has in the past been linked to Salix, a gastrointestinal drug specialist with a market capitalisation of $7.6bn....
...shared by many in the pharma sector who see the company as a cost-cutting enemy of R&D....
...For generic manufacturers such as Teva, Mylan and Actavis, the pressure has come from the rise of lower-cost Indian rivals such as Sun Pharma and Cipla....
...Robert Wessman, former chief executive of Actavis — which bought Botox-maker Allergan in a blockbuster deal last year — remains a minority shareholder and would continue to serve as Alvogen chief executive...
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