Canada's Biovail laid the groundwork today for a new round of acquisitions, slashing its dividend by 76 percent is it hoards cash for deals. The dividend move will provide $180 million a year for new acquisitions. Biovail also announced that it is closing an Ontario-based research facility and slashing 50 jobs, part of a cost-cutting effort aimed at whittling $40 million to $60 million a year in expenses.
Biovail has been restructuring its development efforts to focus squarely on new therapies for central nervous system disorders. The developer says that it will spend $600 million on new CNS therapies through 2012 and has already laid out a series of acquisitions along that line.
With GlaxoSmithKline's focus shifting to new product launches, the pharma giant sold its U.S. commercial rights in Wellbutrin XL to Biovail today for $510 million.
- here's the report from Reuters
- read the Wall Street Journal article
- see this release on Wellbutrin