King divests drug to clear Alpharma merger

The US Federal Trade Commission has allowed the proposed takeover of Alpharma by King Pharmaceuticals to go ahead, on the condition that King  sells Alpharma's oral long-acting morphine capsule product Kadian to  Icelandic generics firm Actavis.

The $1.6-billion acquisition of Alpharma by King was accepted in  December after three months of negotiations (Marketletter December 1,  2008). The FTC intervened in the matter as it says King's Avinza is the  only other "competitively-significant" brand of morphine sulfate oral  long-acting opioid on the US market and, as such, the merger would be  anti-competitive.

Actavis buys Kadian for $127.5M