Irvine drug maker Allergan Inc. is paying $150 million for a prescription acne gel that recently was cleared by regulators for wider use.
Allergan is buying Aczone from Vancouver, British Columbia’s QLT Inc. in a deal expected to close in the third quarter.
The company expects yearly sales of Aczone to reach $75 million. Allergan has annual revenue of $4 billion.
Aczone was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2005. But regulators required patients first to be screened to see if they were predisposed to a type of anemia.
That led QLT not to market the drug.
In March, the FDA listed the screening requirement.
Allergan said it expects to start selling Aczone in the U.S. and Canada in the fourth quarter.
The deal isn’t expected to dilute Allergan’s profits, the company said. It reaffirmed its outlook for 2008 on Monday.
For the year, Allergan expects a profit of $785 million to $797 million, up about 18% from 2007.
The company forecasts sales of $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion, up from $3.9 billion in 2007.
