Allergan To Acquire Naurex For $560 Mln In Cash

(RTTNews) - Allergan plc (AGN) said Sunday that it agreed to acquire Naurex Inc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing transformative therapies for challenging disorders of the central nervous system, for a $560 million upfront payment net of cash acquired.

Of the amount, $460 million is payable upon the closing of the acquisition and $100 million is payable by January of 2016 (or upon the closing if the closing has not occurred by such time), as well as potential R&D success-based and sales-threshold milestone payments.

Allergan remains committed to de-leveraging to below 3.5x debt-to-EBITDA by the end of the first quarter of 2016. Allergan anticipates closing the transaction by the end of 2015.

The announcement comes among reports that Israeli generic drug maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) is in talks to acquire Botox maker Allergan plc's generic drug business for about $45 billion.

Meanwhile, Allergan noted that Naurex deal will strengthen its long-term growth profile with the addition of Naurex's lead development product rapastinel (GLYX-13), a once-weekly intravenous Phase 3-ready molecule that has demonstrated rapid, robust and sustained efficacy in multiple Phase 2 clinical studies in depression. The acquisition will also add Naurex's development product NRX-1074, a next-generation drug candidate, the intravenous form of which has shown rapid and robust antidepressant efficacy in an initial single-dose Phase 2 study.