All eyes on Brent Saun­ders: Bausch + Lomb deal­mak­er to buy Xi­idra from No­var­tis in $1.75B deal

Brent Saun­ders is mak­ing deals yet again.

In his re­turn to the helm of Bausch + Lomb, Saun­ders will broad­en the eye-care com­pa­ny’s port­fo­lio with a deal for No­var­tis’ dry eye drug Xi­idra, plus a clin­i­cal-stage med and a pre­clin­i­cal as­set.

The Cana­di­an com­pa­ny will pay $1.75 bil­lion up­front to ac­quire Xi­idra from No­var­tis, with the deal ex­pect­ed to close in the sec­ond half of this year, the Swiss drug­mak­er said Fri­day. No­var­tis got its hands on the oph­thalmic so­lu­tion in a $3.4 bil­lion deal with Take­da in 2019, which in­clud­ed an­oth­er $1.9 bil­lion in po­ten­tial fu­ture pay­ments.

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