Teva Pharmaceutical agreed to spend $40.5 billion in cash and stock to acquire the generic drug business of Allergan, the Jerusalem-based drugmaker announced. “This strategic acquisition brings together two leading generics businesses with complementary strengths, brands and cultures,” Teva said. Allergan will get $33.75 billion in cash along with Teva shares valued at $6.75 billion, which equals a 10% stake in Teva. The deal means Teva will drop its hostile bid for Mylan, which is trying to acquire Perrigo Co. Allergan had been considering selling off its generics business to concentrate on branded drugs such as Botox.

Allergan on Sunday announced its own acquisition, saying it would buy Naurex, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that develops antidepressants, for $560 million in cash. “The acquisition will strengthen Allergan’s long-term growth profile with the addition of Naurex’s lead development product rapastinel (GLYX-13), a once-weekly intravenous Phase III-ready molecule that has demonstrated rapid, robust and sustained efficacy in multiple Phase II clinical studies in depression,” Allergan said.

 

AstraZeneca said it would sell the global rights to Caprelsa, a drug used to treat a rare type of cancer, to Sanofi for up to $300 million, Reuters reported. The deal includes a cash payment of $165 million and future payments based on the drug’s performance, up to an additional $135 million. AstraZeneca has been facing declining sales of its older drugs. Earlier this month it entered into another deal to sell rights for one of its gastrointestinal drugs for $215 million. Caprelsa, which had sales of $48 million in 2014, is available in 28 countries for treating medullary thyroid carcinoma.

 

The FDA on Friday approved Novartis’s Odomzo (sonidegib), a new drug used to treat advanced basal cell carcinoma. The daily therapy can be used in patients whose cancer has not spread but who had a recurrence after undergoing surgery or radiation therapy. The company has not yet disclosed the price of the drug, according to the Associated Press. The agency also approved Bristol-Myers Squibb hepatitis-C drug Daklinza (daclatasvir) for use in combination with Gilead Sciences’ Sovaldi to treat those with the genotype-3 form of the virus.

The University of California, San Diego won a court battle against another California academic institution over ownership of research on Alzheimer’s disease, the Associated Press reported. The UCSD suit alleged that Dr. Paul Aisen, a researcher who left the university to join the University of Southern California, had illegally transferred the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study to his new employer. A California superior court judge ruled in UCSD’s favor on Friday. Aisen left San Diego in June to head up a new Alzheimer’s institute at USC and had argued it was academic tradition for a faculty member to transfer research to a new employee.