Covington & Burling represented Forest Laboratories in a definitive agreement to acquire Furiex Pharmaceuticals, a drug development collaboration company, for up to $1.46 billion.
The acquisition of Furiex expands Forest’s offerings in gastroenterology. Forest agreed to pay $95 per share in cash, or approximately $1.1 billion in the aggregate. In addition, Furiex shareholders will receive a contractual contingent value right to receive up to $30 a share, approximately $360 million in the aggregate, tied to the scheduling under the Controlled Substances Act of Furiex’s lead candidate, eluxadoline, a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome that still requires regulatory approval.
Separately, Forest entered into an agreement with Royalty Pharma to sell, immediately following the completion of the Furiex acquisition, Furiex’s rights to receive milestone and royalty payments on two drugs, alogliptin and Priligy®, to Royalty Pharma for approximately $415 million.
The transactions are expected to close simultaneously in the second or third quarter of 2014.
The Covington team was led by Andrew Ment and included Patrick Manchester, Bud Jerke, Magdalina Gugucheva, Aisha Granville, Michael Formichelli, Sarah Hoagland (corporate), Michael Francese (benefits), Lee Tiedrich (intellectual property), Rob Heller (tax), and Mike Labson and Peter Safir (regulatory).
