Teva Pharm to stay as unified drugmaker, sees big interest in API
business, says CEO
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[February 20, 2024]
By Steven Scheer
TEL AVIV (Reuters) -Teva Pharmaceutical Industries will remain a single
company for generic and branded drugs, and expects to see significant
interest in its active pharmaceutical ingredients business that it plans
to divest, its head said on Tuesday.
There has been speculation that Israel-based Teva - the world's largest
generic drug maker - would split into two companies handling both the
increasingly competitive generics business and its own branded drugs.
However, the company will stay unified, and "from an infrastructure
point of view, (the two businesses) complement each other incredibly
well," Chief Executive Richard Francis said at a news briefing.
The generics side "allows us to fund a lot of research and development
we are doing in our innovative business," he said, citing Teva's
collaborations on R&D with Israeli universities.
Those partnerships mean "we don't have to go out and seek funding to
drive some of this innovation, which many other companies do."
Teva last month reported strong fourth-quarter earnings and forecast
lower profit but higher sales this year, adding a deal to sell its API
business would be completed in 2025.
Teva API - dealing with active ingredients contained in medicines - is a
$1 billion business in an $85 billion global market. Francis believes
that as a standalone business, it should perform "far greater" than its
annual growth so far of 6%.
"Businesses like this don't often come on the market. So I do believe
this will affect a significant amount of interest," he said. "That will
lead us to get a fair valuation."
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Richard Francis, Chief Executive of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries,
looks on during a press conference at the company headquarters in
Tel Aviv, Israel, February 20, 2024. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
Teva is in the process of recovering
from loss of exclusivity to its multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone and
a spate of lawsuits, and is betting that a trio of its branded drugs
- Austedo, migraine product Ajovy and schizophrenia drug Uzedy -
will help it bounce back.
Teva has several biosimilars - copies of high-priced drugs - and net
debt is down to $16.6 billion.
High debt from a failed acquisition in 2017 has held Teva back from
further M&A deals, Francis said. In the meantime, Teva has been
licensing products.
"As our debt goes down, then we have the opportunity to do M&A, but
it will be thoughtful and appropriate M&A," he said.
Francis added that since the Israel-Hamas war began, Teva has been
training hundreds of therapists to help with a trauma crisis likely
to affect millions of Israelis.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and
Bernadette Baum)
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