AstraZeneca has signed a 1.6 billion US dollar (£1.2 billion) deal to sell part of its antibiotics business to fellow pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer.
The viagra-maker is set to pay 550 US dollars (£379 million) to AstraZeneca up-front and another 175 million US dollars (£130 million) in January 2019. The remaining amount will be paid out as manufacturing and sales develop.
The deal includes the commercial and development rights to AstraZeneca's late-stage small molecule antibiotics business and "recurring, double-digit royalties" on the sale of select drugs including antibiotic Zavicefta. The rights will be valid across most global markets outside the US, AstraZeneca said.
The deal is expected to be finalised during the fourth quarter of 2016 but AstraZeneca said it will not impact the company's full-year outlook.
Luke Miels, executive vice president for Europe and head of the antibiotics business unit at AstraZeneca, said the divestment will help it focus on three main therapy areas, which include respiratory and autoimmunity therapy, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, and oncology.
John Young, group president of Pfizer's essential health division, welcomed the acquisition, which he said would bolster the pharma giant's global portfolio.
"The addition of AstraZeneca's complementary small molecule anti-infectives portfolio will help expand patient access to these important medicines and enhance our global expertise and offerings in this increasingly important area of therapeutics, in addition to providing the opportunity for near-term revenue growth," Mr Young said.
On Monday, Pfizer said it is to acquire cancer drug company Medivation in a deal valued at about 14 billion US dollars (£10.6 billion).
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here