Mallinckrodt inks $1.2B Sucampo buy, ending rough 2017 on a high note

December 28, 2017  Source: fiercepharma 384

Mallinckrodt, which has landed in hot water multiple times this year, is diversifying beyond its controversial lead seller.

The company Tuesday agreed to shell out $18 per share for Sucampo and its debt, bringing the deal’s total value to about $1.2 billion. The takeover pact boosted shares of Mallinckrodt, which as of Friday were down 53% for the year, Bloomberg notes. 

With Mallinckrodt’s new buy will come constipation med Amitiza, a drug shared with Takeda that Wall Street expects to generate $261 million in 2018 sales. The product bears indications in both chronic idiopathic constipation and opioid-induced constipation, as well as irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C). And Sucampo is gunning for another: The FDA has already accepted the company’s application for a pediatric functional constipation indication, and it’s due to hand down a verdict by the end of January, Jefferies analyst Anthony Petrone wrote in a note to clients.

The buy brings Mallinckrodt access to a pair of Sucampo pipeline candidates, too, in rare diseases Niemann-Pick Type C and Familial Adenomatous Polyposis. Petrone, for one, puts peak sales of the prospects at a combined $450 million.

Mallinckrodt CEO Mark Trudeau touted the deal as “the latest milestone towards our vision of becoming an innovation-driven specialty pharmaceutical growth company.” The agreement follows the company’s move to leave industry trade group PhRMA—just 15 months after joining—ahead of new rules requiring member drugmakers to spend significant bucks on R&D.

Its been a rough year for the U.K.-based drugmaker, which in October was hit with a payer lawsuit accusing the company of blocking competition to lead med H.P. Acthar Gel and, along with previous owner Questcor, raising prices on it by 85,000% since 2001. Earlier in the year, it agreed to fork over $100 million to the FTC to wrap up a probe it inherited with its 2014 Questcor buy. And it also in April paid $35 million to settle an oxycodone diversion case with the Justice Department.

The way Petrone sees it, though, the company is ending 2017 on a high note. Based his current 2018 targets for Mallinckrodt, the transaction will pad revenue by 8% and earnings by 10%, he wrote.

By Ddu
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