Valeant buys AB Sanitas for $432.6M

Mississauga-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. said Tuesday it has agreed to acquire Lithuania-based pharma company AB Sanitas for $432.6 million in cash.

The deal gives Valeant 87.2 per cent of the outstanding shares. Valeant said it a release it would now launch a mandatory tender offer to acquire the remaining interest. The deal will also have Valeant assume $69 million in debt.

Sanitas has a product portfolio of 390 generic drugs sold in nine countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, but primarily Poland, Russia and Lithuania.

Annual revenues for Sanitas are expected to be over $138 million in 2011, Valeant said in a news release.

The deal is expected to close by the end of September. Valeant shares closed unchnaged at $48.32on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The move came three weeks after Valeant was beat out by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries in its hostile bid to buy Frazer, Pa.-based Cephalon Inc.

Last September, Valeant merged with Biovail Corporation, Canada's biggest pharmaceutical company at the time, in a deal valued at $3.2 billion US.