Pictured: Person applies eye drops/iStock, megaflopp
Bausch + Lomb announced Friday that it plans to buy Xiidra, a dry eye drug, from Novartis for $1.75 billion upfront in cash plus potential milestone payments of $750 million.
This is the first major deal reached by Bausch + Lomb’s new CEO Brent Saunders, who called the move a “great first step” to add scale to the business.
Saunders took the reins from former CEO Joseph Papa in March. This is Saunders’ second time serving as the company’s chief executive officer—his first stint ended in 2013, shortly after which the company was sold to Valeant.
Xiidra, the first FDA-approved prescription treatment for dry eye disease, raked in $487 million in sales in 2022, an increase of 4% from the year before, according to Novartis’ 2022 annual report. Novartis originally acquired the drug from Takeda in 2019 for $3.4 billion plus $1.9 billion in potential milestones.
In addition to Xiidra, the deal also includes rights to the AcuStream delivery device in dry eye indications, investigational therapy for chronic ocular surface pain SAF312 (libvatrep), and a second-generation TRPV1 antagonist in preclinical development called OJL332.
According to Friday’s press release, Novartis will keep supplying Xiidra to patients on behalf of Bausch + Lomb for a limited period after the closing of the deal, which is expected in the second half of 2023.
This is not the first dry eye treatment that Novartis has let go. In December 2022, the company announced it was selling the U.S. rights to five treatments to Harrow for up to $175 million.
This move by Saunders is just one of many he has made in the dry eye space. During his time at the helm of Allergan, Saunders transferred all patents for the company’s billion-dollar dry eye drug Restasis to a Native American tribe in order to protect the drug from patent challenges.
The tribe then handed the exclusive rights back to Allergan, and several senators called the move a “blatant attempt to further Allergan’s market monopoly.” Xiidra will face competition from Restasis, now owned by AbbVie, and any others that are under development. One of these is Aldeyra Therapeutics’ reproxalap, which the FDA will decide on by November 23.
Rosemary Scott is an editor at BioSpace, focusing on the job market and career development for professionals in the life sciences. You can reach her at rosemary.scott@biospace.com and on LinkedIn.
