Dublin, Ireland-headquartered Alkermes is to sell its manufacturing facility in Gainesville, GA, US, the manufacturing and royalty revenue associated with products manufactured there and global rights to Meloxicam IV/IM to Recro Pharma, a speciality pharmaceutical company, for up to US$170m.
Malvern, PA-based Recro will make an initial cash payment of US$50m to Alkermes, followed by development and commercialisation milestone payments of up to $120m.
The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2015.
Alkermes bought the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility in Gainesville in 2011 as part of its business combination with Elan Drug Technologies.
'We are streamlining Alkermes’ manufacturing operations for our commercial products and late-stage pipeline into our two GMP facilities in Athlone, Ireland, and Wilmington, Ohio,' said James Frates, Chief Financial Officer of Alkermes.
'With this transaction, we are capturing value from non-core assets, as we continue to execute on our strategy and focus on the key driver of our future growth – our late-stage pipeline of innovative medicines for central nervous system diseases.'