Forest Labs to buy GI specialist Furiex in $1.46-bn deal

Forest Laboratories Inc today struck a deal to buy gastrointestinal treatments specialist  Inc for as much as $1.46 billion including milestone payments.

Forest will pay $95 a share in cash, a total of about $1.1 billion, and a further $360 million on receiving regulatory approval for Furiex's eluxadoline drug, developed for the treatment for irritable bowel syndrome.

Forest, which itself is in the process of being acquired by Actavis Plc for $25 billion, said that Actavis supported the deal (See: Actavis to acquire Forest Laboratories for $25 billion).

Post closing, Forest plans to sell Furiex's royalties on diabetes drug alogliptin and premature ejaculation treatment Priligy to Royalty Pharma for about $415 million.

''The acquisition of Furiex builds on our growing position in gastroenterology and helps to create a leading GI company within Forest. It is a natural extension of our GI business following our $2.9 billion acquisition of Aptalis earlier this year,'' said Brent Saunders, CEO and president of Forest.

''With eluxadoline, we expect to have one of the broadest product offerings for the $38 billion GI disease market,'' he added.

Furiex is a drug development collaboration company that uses innovative clinical development design to accelerate and increase value of drug development programs by advancing them through the drug discovery and development process

The North Carolina-based company collaborates with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and has a diversified product portfolio and pipeline with multiple therapeutic candidates, including one Phase III-ready asset, two compounds in Phase III development, one of which is with a partner, and four products on the market.

Forest Laboratories, which in January acquired privately-held specialty pharmaceutical firm Aptalis for $2.9 billion, caters largely to the US market (Forest Labs acquires Aptalis for $2.9 bn).http://www.domain-b.com/industry/pharma/20140109_blockbuster.html

The company's branded drug portfolio covers five key therapeutic areas - central nerve system, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory, and anti-infective.

Five Forest products are at the NDA stage of development, including treatments for Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, as well as Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders and treatments for COPD.

Its best-known branded drugs are antidepressant drug Lexapro and dementia treatment drug Namenda.

Its revenue in the last fiscal year was around $3.1 billion.