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Merck KGaA Said to Seek Buyer for Serono Unit's Fertility-Boosting Drugs
Merck KGaA, the German company that borrowed 3.6 billion euros ($4.8 billion) this year to buy Millipore Corp., is trying to sell its infertility-treatment business, according to two people with knowledge of the plan.
Selling the assets may help the Darmstadt, Germany-based maker of drugs and chemicals position itself to get out of women’s health, said the people, who declined to be identified because the process is confidential. The medicines had 616 million euros of sales last year, led by the Gonal-f hormone injection.
Chief Financial Officer Michael Becker told analysts last week that Merck aims to repay debt and increase its dividend at the same time. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the world’s biggest generic-drug maker, is seeking to expand its women’s health business and may be interested in the infertility treatments, said Frances Cloud, an independent analyst in London who has covered the drug industry for 23 years.
“You’d probably get interest from biotech and mid-size pharma, and private equity,” Cloud said in a telephone interview today.
Gangolf Schrimpf, a spokesman for Merck, declined to comment. Teva spokesman Yossi Koren declined to comment.
Merck’s other infertility drugs include Pergoveris, Ovidrel/Ovitrelle, Luveris, Crinone and Cetrotide. Merck acquired the business when it purchased Swiss biotechnology company Serono SA in 2007. Serono pioneered infertility treatments in the 1960s, based on hormones extracted from the urine collected from postmenopausal nuns.
Theramex
A separate Merck unit, Theramex, sells contraceptives and had 85.6 million euros in sales last year, Schrimpf said.
The family-controlled company also makes liquid crystals used in flat-panel televisions, as well as chemicals for the coatings, cosmetics and food industries.
Net income jumped 69 percent in the second quarter on surging demand for liquid crystals, Merck said July 29. The company raised its 2010 earnings and sales forecasts.
Merck KGaA isn’t affiliated with Merck & Co. of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jacqueline Simmons in Paris at jackiem@bloomberg.net; Dermot Doherty in Geneva at ddoherty9@bloomberg.net; Naomi Kresge in Berlin at nkresge@bloomberg.net.
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