MONTREAL
— Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. says it has acquired Visudyne,
used to treat abnormal growth of leaky blood vessels in the eye caused by wet
age-related macular degeneration, from QLT Inc. Valeant paid $62.5 million
upfront for all U.S. rights and available inventories for Visudyne, which had
U.S. revenue of approximately $21 million in 2011, and another $50 million
upfront for rights to non-U.S. royalties on Visudyne sales, which were
approximately $14 million in 2011.
Valeant
has also agreed to pay an additional $5 million in contingent payments relating
to the development of QLT''s laser program in the U.S. and up to $15 million in
contingent payments relating to the non-U.S. royalties. Additionally, Valeant
has manufacturing rights and assumed a supply agreement for outside of U.S. The
transaction is expected to be immediately accretive.
"We
are excited about the opportunity to add a complementary product to our growing
ophthalmology business," J. Michael Pearson, chairman and CEO says.
"Not only will we be able to use Visudyne to better leverage our current
ophthalmology sales force with a complementary product to Macugen, we are
pleased to add a product that retinal specialists around the county can use as
an adjunctive to products like Macugen to improve treatment options."