Acquisition of MedPointe completed

Meda has announced that it has completed its acquisition of MedPointe, with consolidation to start immediately.

The final purchase price for Med-Pointe was US$520m in cash and 17.5 million newly issued Meda shares. The cash component of $520m was hedged at SEK/USD 6.74 and compared to the current exchange rate this is equivalent to a positive effect of about 100m SEK. The book value of the newly issued shares was set to 98.50 SEK per share. New shareholders in Meda are The Carlyle Group, The Cypress Group, and other US investors, who will have a com-bined shareholding in Meda of ap-proximately 7%.

Meda says that its strategic acqui-sition will establish it as a world-class specialty pharma company with full marketing coverage in the US and Europe and with revenues of around 9bn SEK.

MedPointe is a fast growing US-based specialty pharma company focused on two of Meda's priority areas, Allergy / Respiratory and Pain. The product portfolios are highly complementary. Med-Pointe's net sales in 2006 were $252m, representing a 23% growth in local currency compared to pre-vious year. Net sales for the first half of 2007 amounted to around $145m.