Allergan Inc., the Irvine-based maker of Botox and other drugs, said Monday it would spend $60 million to buy co-promotion rights for a migraine headache drug from a Bay Area drug maker.
Allergan plans to work with Mountain View-based Map Pharmaceuticals Inc. to co-promote Map’s Levadex drug candidate to neurologists and pain doctors in the U.S., once it’s approved.
The companies said in a statement that Map would retain all rights to market Levadex outside the U.S. as well as to primary care doctors in the U.S.
The deal expands Allergan’s growing migraine business, which is centered on longtime flagship Botox. Regulators approved Botox for treating chronic migraines in October.
Analysts have said Botox for migraine could add some $500 million or more to Botox’s $1 billion in annual sales.
Allergan is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter and 2010 results Wednesday.
Levadex, an acute migraine treatment, has completed its late-stage development.
Map is expected to submit its application for Food and Drug Administration approval in the first half of this year, which suggests that approval is likely in early 2012, analyst Larry Biegelsen of Wells Fargo Securities told Reuters.
