A deal aimed at settling the women’s health assets that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) possesses outside the U.S. is about to close, according to Bloomberg. The assets, whose value is estimated to be around $800 million, will be sold to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm.
In the face of debt amounting to $35 billion the biggest generics drugs maker in the world has been eyeing the sale of some its assets to help pay the debt. Earlier in the week Teva announced that it had reached a deal to sell Paragard, a female contraceptive brand, to a Cooper Cos unit at a price of $1.1 billion. Paragard was part of Teva’s women’s health business. This was on the same day that the pharmaceutical giant announced the appointment of Kare Schultz as the chief executive officer.
CEO Search
Schultz was previously an executive at Lundbeck, a drugmaker based in Denmark and his appointment came after a CEO search that lasted seven months. The CEO position at Teva became vacant after its previous chief executive, Erez Vigodman, resigned earlier in the year.
Prior to his previous position at Lundbeck, Schultz worked as Novo Nordisk A/S (ADR) (NYSE:NVO) chief operating officer. While serving as Lundbeck’s chief executive officer, Schultz oversaw a restructuring effort which led to the laying off of 1,000 employees, or about 17% of the jobs. His two-year stint at the Danish drugmaker saw Lundbeck’s shares treble in value. Since August when Teva released results showing that it had incurred a loss of $6 billion, shares of the generics drugmaker have fallen by close to 50%.
Two months ago speculation had been rife in the Israeli media that Teva was looking to hire AstraZeneca plc (ADR) (NYSE:AZN)’s Pascal Soriot as its chief executive officer. A former chief operating officer at Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG), Jacqualyn Fouse, was also reported to have been approached for the job but he turned it down. Schultz’s appointment comes at a time when Teva is facing various challenges including possible regulatory action after the European Commission accused the drugmaker of anti-competitive behavior.
On Wednesday shares of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries fell by 2.43% to close the day at $18.86.
