13.10.2010

Pfizer will expand its painkiller and animal-health businesses by acquiring King Pharmaceuticals for $3.6 billion.

The deal to buy King Pharmaceutical Inc. is Pfizer's largest since it bought rival Wyeth for $68 billion in 2009. Pfizer is paying $14.25 per share for King. That's a premium of 40 percent to the stock's Monday closing price of $10.15. King's animal health business (subsidiary, Alpharma, LLC.) is also part of the deal.
King has been focused on making new painkillers since its top-selling blood-pressure pill Altace went generic in 2007. The company acquired Alpharma Inc. the following year for about $1.3 billion to gain rights to Embeda, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August 2009.

The companies did not say whether jobs would be eliminated after the deal closes. King says it has about 2,600 employees. Pfizer had 116,500 workers at the end of 2009, but is in the process of cutting about 20,000 jobs in the wake of the Wyeth deal.