Why Valeant Is Making a Run

[cnxvideo id=”625493″ placement=”ros”]Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (NYSE: VRX) made waves early on Tuesday after the company offered a plethora of announcements. First the company gave an update on its late-stage psoriasis trial. Along with this success, Valeant reported the sale of a couple of its business segments, bringing in a sizable amount of cash.

Although Valeant had a rough run since 2015, the health care sector is starting to heat up in anticipation of the Trump administration. Analysts at Jefferies picked winners in the sector going forward into 2017 as well.

The company announced positive results from a second confirmatory pivotal Phase 3 clinical study to assess the safety and efficacy of IDP-118 (halobetasol propionate and tazarotene) lotion in the treatment of plaque psoriasis. IDP-118 showed statistical significance to vehicle with a treatment success rate at eight weeks of 35.76% to 6.98%.

Valeant first reported that it would be selling all of its outstanding equity interests in Dendreon Pharmaceuticals to Sanpower Group, one of the largest privately owned conglomerates in China. The price tag for this deal came to a total of $819.9 million.

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Dendreon’s first and only commercialized product is Provenge, an autologous cellular immunotherapy (vaccine) for prostate cancer treatment approved by the FDA in April 2010.

Valeant intends to use proceeds from the sale of Dendreon to permanently repay term loan debt under its senior secured credit facility. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2017, but it is still subject to regulatory approval.

Separately, the company announced that it entered into an agreement to sell its CeraVe, AcneFree and AMBI skincare brands to L’Oreal for $1.3 billion in cash. It’s worth noting that CeraVe, AcneFree and AMBI product lines have annualized revenues of roughly $168 million.

Much like the other sale, Valeant will use the proceeds to repay its senior debt. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017, and it is subject to regulatory and customary closing conditions.

Shares of Valeant were trading up more than 7% at $16.46 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $23.97 and a 52-week trading range of $13.00 to $101.40.

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