Allergan has agreed to pay nearly $1 billion to acquire MAP Pharmaceuticals and gain full control of its experimental treatment for migraine headaches, the two companies announced Tuesday night.
The purchase price of $25 a share in cash is a 60 percent premium over MAP’s closing price on Tuesday of $15.58 a share. The deal, worth $958 million in total, suggests that Allergan has great faith that MAP’s new migraine treatment will win regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration by the agency’s deadline of April 15.
The two companies sad the deal had been unanimously approved by the boards of both companies and was expected to close in the second quarter.
Allergan already had the rights to help market the migraine drug, known as Levadex, in the United States and Canada, but after an acquisition it would have control of all the profits and costs globally.
Allergan is most known for Botox, a form of the botulinum toxin, which is used for cosmetic purposes as well as medical ones, including to treat chronic migraines with the goal of reducing the frequency of headaches. By contrast, Levadex is meant to treat migraines after they occur, making it complementary to Botox, Allergan said.
Levadex is actually a new form of an old drug, known as dihydroergotamine, or DHE, which has been used to treat severe migraine attacks for decades. DHE is typically given by intravenous infusion, requiring patients to get to a hospital at a time when many would rather remain in a dark quiet room.
Levadex, by contrast, is breat! hed into the lungs using an inhaler similar to one used for asthma, allowing people to use it at home.
The Food and Drug Administration declined to approve Levadex last March, though MAP said the rejection was related to manufacturing and questions about use of the inhaler, not the safety and efficacy of the drug. It resubmitted its application, with additional data and answers to questions from the F.D.A., in October.
Levadex would be the first approved product for MAP, which is based in Mountain View, Calif.
Allergan said that if Levadex is approved by April, the transaction will be dilutive to earnings per share by about 7 cents in 2013 and become accretive in the second half of 2014.
Allergan was advised by Goldman Sachs and the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. MAP was advised by Centerview Partners and the law firm Latham Watkins.
