UCB announced that it acquired a majority stake (51%) of the Brazilian private pharma company Meizler Biopharma. No financial details were disclosed.
Our View:
It is well-known that UCB wants to increase its commercial footprint into certain emerging markets. Brazil is one of these markets where UCB is not directly present and via Meizler, the company can develop a platform to introduce both its current and future products into this fast growing market.
UCB now acquired 51% of Meizler and has an option to acquire the remaining 49% in the future. Meizler is eligible to certain performance related milestone payments.
Meizler commercializes a range of inlicensed products covering a broad range of therapeutics areas, including in the core areas of UCB (immunology and CNS). It has full-service warehousing and distribution capacity meeting the increasing government demand for pharmaceutical products. Profitable Meizler employs 130 staff and 2011 revenues were € 36m. UCB will fully consolidate Meizler’s results under the IFRS rules.
Conclusion:
We expect the acquisition to have limited short-term financial impact to UCB. We believe the acquisition was not driven by UCB’s interest to Meizler’s product portfolio, but rather will provide UCB with an interesting platform to commercialize its current and future products in the dynamic Brazilian market. Especially for a product like Cimzia, geographical (and label) expansionis of importance to meet the peak sales guidance. We expect to make similar moves in other emerging countries in the coming periods.