Teva beat Valeant to the post by offering 6% above Valeant’s offer. The deal not only increases Teva’s branded business, but also enhances its generic presence in high growth emerging markets. The deal includes Mepha, Cephalon’s generics unit, which is the generics leader in Switzerland and which has a geographic presence in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

It is no wonder that Teva is making sure it has a firm foothold in the biopharmaceutical business. In 2009, biologicals sales reached US$130 billion. Cephalon’s branded portfolio currently represents approximately US$7 billion in sales, with a robust ‘pipeline’ including more than 30 late-stage compounds.

Since Teva is undoubtedly the world’s number one generics company and is, as it puts it, ‘commitment to providing consumers with access to high-quality, affordable medicines’, one can only speculate that this acquisition may also be used to reinforce its presence in the biosimilars market.

It is estimated that, by 2015, US$60 billion-worth of biologicals will lose patent protection. Teva already has a biosimilar granulocyte colony-stimulating factor approved in the EU, with a low molecular weight heparin, a biosimilar version of Lovenox (enoxaparin sodium), awaiting approval. Meanwhile, it is working on a biosimilar version of Roche’s blood-cancer drug, Rituxan (rituximab).

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