Valeant to sell $2.1 billion in assets to pay down debt

PARIS: Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc agreed to sell about $2.1 billion in assets as the embattled Canadian drugmaker seeks to streamline its businesses and ease its debt burden.

L’Oreal SA will pay Valeant $1.3 billion for three skincare brands, the Paris-based company on Tuesday said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Valeant agreed to sell its Dendreon Pharmaceuticals unit to closely held Chinese conglomerate Sanpower Group Co for about $820 million.


The agreements mark a start to Valeant’s efforts to pay down about $30 billion in debt.

The Laval, Quebec-based company has been embroiled in scandals about its high prices and accounting that led to legal and regulatory investigations along with declines in its share price.

The three brands being sold to L’Oreal — CerAve, AcneFree and Ambi — have combined annual sales of about $168 million, the buyer said.

The products will become part of L’Oreal’s Active Cosmetics Division, which includes brands such as La Roche-Posay, Vichy and SkinCeuticals, it said.

Skincare is the largest category in the cosmetics industry, accounting for more than one-third of the global market, according to data tracker MarketResearch.com.

The Sanpower transaction gives the Chinese company control over Provenge, an immunotherapy treatment for prostate cancer that is the unit’s only commercialised medicine.

Valeant had talks to sell its Salix gastrointestinal drugs business to Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., although those discussions later broke down because of disagreements over the price, Bloomberg News reported last year, citing people familiar with the matter.