Aerie Pharmaceuticals Stock Surges as Alcon to Buy Eye Care Firm in $770 Million Deal
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Alcon
agreed to acquire ophthalmic therapies company
Aerie Pharmaceuticals
for $15.25 a share, valuing the company at about $770 million.
The deal is a premium of 37% to Aerie’s last closing price of $11.15 a share on Monday. In premarket trading Tuesday, shares of Aerie (ticker: AERI) jumped 35.6% to $15.12.
Under the deal,
Alcon
(ALC) will add Aerie’s Rocklatan and Rhopressa eye drops, AR-15512, a Phase 3 product candidate for dry eye disease, and a pipeline of other clinical and preclinical ophthalmic pharmaceutical product candidates.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Alcon said the acquisition will add to its core per-share earnings in 2024.
The boards of both companies approved the transaction.
Analysts at Needham lowered their rating on shares of Aerie to Hold from Buy, saying that a “competitive bidding process seems unlikely to materialize before the transaction closes in 4Q22.”
“We believe AERI has long been exploring potential M&A exits for the co. since the launch of Rhopressa/Rocklatan failed to meet expectations and financing the commercialization of the slow-growing glaucoma franchise became more challenging,” said the analysts, led by Serge Belanger. “Those efforts to find a bid likely increased when the original management exited in 2021.”
Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com
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