Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) and Cephalon Inc. (Nasdaq: CEPH ) announced today that they received approval from the European Commission to proceed with Teva’s $7 billion acquisition of innovative drugs company Cephalon.
A condition of the approval is that Teva must divest Cephalon's marketing authorization of generic modafinil in France and grant to the purchaser of this marketing authorization certain additional rights with respect to the entire European Economic Area, including a covenant not to sue effective as of October 2012.
Teva received approval for the US authorities for the merger at the beginning of the week. Under that approval, Teva is required to divest two ANDAs for fentanyl citrate lozenges, a generic version of Actiq, and cyclobenzaprine ER capsules, the generic version of Amrix. Teva will also grant non-exclusive U.S. rights to an undisclosed company to market modafinil tablets, the generic version of Provigil, which had annual brand sales in the US of approximately $1.1 billion.
With the European Commission approval, the parties have now obtained all regulatory approvals required to close the transaction and, accordingly, have scheduled a closing date of October 14, 2011.
Teva projects that the deal will be accretive on a non-GAAP basis as soon as it is completed, and on a GAAP basis within four quarters. Teva also expects synergies of $500 million in the third year after completion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 13, 2011
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