Isreali drug giant Teva, announced plans to offload the remaining assets in its specialty women’s health business for $1.38 billion in two separate transactions. The drug maker plans to use the proceeds of the sale, combined with the $1.1 billion it received from the recent sale of its Paragard IUD asset announced last week, to pay down debt.
Teva siad that CVC Capital Partners Fund VI will pay $703 million in cash for a portfolio in Teva's global women´s health business including contraception, fertility, menopause and osteoporosis products. Net sales of these products in 2016 amounted to $258 million.
Teva will also sell its Plan B One-Step and emergency contraception brands to Foundation Consumer Healthcare for $675 million. Combined annual net sales of these products were $140 million last year.
"Today´s announcement, coupled with the recent announcement of the sale of Paragard for $1.1 billion, demonstrate Teva´s commitment to delivering on our promise to generate net proceeds of at least $2 billion" from the divestitures, said Yitzhak Peterburg, interim chief executive. "With these initial divestitures we have exceeded expectations."
Teva, which named new CEO Kare Schultz last week, faces large debt from a $40 billion acquisition of Allergan’s generics business in 2015. The stock has lost half its value, as investors wait for Teva to come up with a plan to address challenges, including pricing pressures for its U.S. generic drug business.
Teva also lost a patent-infringement case in February to protect its best-selling, branded multiple-sclerosis drug Copaxone from competition by drug manufacturers who will make lower-cost, chemically-equivalent generic versions to sell.
