Bristol-Myers Squibb sells OTC Assets in Asia Pacific and shares in B-MS Indonesia to Taisho

US drug major Bristol-Myers Squibb says it has reached an agreement for the sale of its over-the-counter medicines assets in Asia Pacific (excluding China and Japan) to Taisho Pharmaceutical, Japan's largest OTC drugmaker.

Under the terms of the deal, Taisho will acquire certain product registrations, trade marks and related assets of selected pharmaceutical and over-the-counter products sold primarily in Indonesia, Thailand and The Philippines, as well as in other countries in the Asia Pacific region, including the rights to the Tempra, Counterpain, Theragran-M, Engran, Ceetrus and Keri brands.

The transaction also includes B-MS's 97.97% stake in PT Bristol-Myers Squibb Indonesia Tbk, and the land, buildings, product registrations, intellectual property, fixed assets, inventory and other related assets owned by BMSI as of the closing date. The aggregate purchase price to be paid by Taisho is $310 million. The closing of the transaction is expected to occur during the fourth quarter of 2009.

Taisho will continue to supply these products to patients in Indonesia and in many other countries within Asia Pacific. Bristol-Myers Squibb Japan sold its OTC business to Lion Corporation in June 2007.

'This planned divestiture is a part of Bristol-Myers Squibb's strategic transformation into a more focused next-generation BioPharma company that develops and commercializes products that address serious unmet medical needs,' said Dieter Weinand, president, intercontinental at the US company.
'The company is looking closely at its geographic and manufacturing footprint to align more closely to the scale and size of a BioPharma company. Today's announcement is the seventh in a series of transactions Bristol-Myers Squibb has recently executed within this optimization strategy,' he noted.