The battle for Inamed Corp. heated up Tuesday after Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. asked Inamed’s board to reject a bigger buyout offer from Irvine-based Allergan Inc.
Allergan, maker of wrinkle-fighting Botox Cosmetic, and Scottsdale-based Medicis have rival bids for Santa Barbara-based Inamed in a play to consolidate the cosmetic surgery products market.
A week ago, Allergan offered a bid of $3.2 million for Inamed, which makes facial cosmetic products, breast implants and obesity treatments. Allergan’s offer dwarfed an earlier bid of $2.8 billion by Medicis for Inamed that was submitted in March.
On Sunday, Mentor Corp., an Inamed competitor that’s also based in Santa Barbara, offered $2.2 billion to buy Medicis, which Medicis quickly rejected.
Meanwhile, Allergan and Inamed have signed a confidentiality deal and started to exchange private information. Allergan is offering about $84 in cash for each share of Inamed stock.
Medicis said that if Inamed doesn’t accept its offer by Dec. 6, it had the right to kill the deal and collect a $90 million breakup fee.
