Novartis has agreed to buy a 25 percent stake in Nestle's Alcon Inc. for $11 billion and said it may acquire the rest to become the world's biggest maker of eye-care products.
Novartis, Switzerland's second-largest pharmaceuticals company, will pay $143.18 a share for Vevey, Switzerland-based Nestle's 25 percent holding, and has an option to buy a further 52 percent from the food company for $28 billion.
Buying Alcon would add $5.6 billion in sales and gives Novartis the Opti-Free contact lens treatment, the Travatan glaucoma medicine and the Infiniti line of cataract surgery products. The drugmaker needs new sources of revenue to as generic competition eats into sales of its best-selling medicines. Nestle will use the funds to cut debt.
``Blue-chip pharmas have a lot of money and are desperate for new growth opportunities,'' said Denise Anderson, an analyst at Landsbanki Kepler in Zurich. ``It's not cheap.''
More at Bloomberg
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