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EU: GSK, Novartis to sell assets for merger

By  |  January 29, 2015

The European Union has approved deals involving drugmakers Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, provided they sell off assets in the vaccines and consumer health businesses.

The European Commission had feared that the transactions, as initially planned, would undermine competition in vaccines against meningitis and diphtheria as well as in a range of consumer health products to stop smoking and to treat cold sores, cold and influenza.

To tackle the commission’s concerns, GSK pledged to “grant a worldwide, exclusive, perpetual license of GSK’s Nimenrix vaccine for bacterial meningitis and divest GSK’s Mencevax vaccine for bacterial meningitis worldwide,” the commission said.

GSK also pledged to conclude supply, distribution and transfer agreements for Novartis’s vaccines against diphtheria and tetanus.

GSK’s purchase of Novartis’s vaccines was for up to $7.1 billion.

Full Content: Reuters

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