Ca­nine club: Elan­co An­i­mal Health makes takeover play for part­ner Aratana in up to $245M deal

Bask­ing in the suc­cess of their painkiller part­ner­ship, Elan­co An­i­mal Health, on Fri­day, laid out plans to swal­low its col­lab­o­ra­tor Aratana Ther­a­peu­tics in a deal po­ten­tial­ly worth up to $245 mil­lion.

Elan­co An­i­mal Health $ELAN,  a spin off from par­ent com­pa­ny Lil­ly $LLY last year, has been eye­ing Kansas-based pet ther­a­peu­tics com­pa­ny Aratana $PETX since its in­cep­tion, when it was in­vest­ing as a lim­it­ed part­ner in Cul­ti­vian, a ven­ture cap­i­tal funds that par­tic­i­pat­ed in Aratana’s ear­ly fi­nanc­ing rounds. In 2016, Elan­co and Aratana joined forces to de­vel­op, man­u­fac­ture and com­mer­cial­ize Gal­liprant, a ca­nine os­teoarthri­tis pain med­i­cine — which gen­er­at­ed 2018 sales of $44 mil­lion, and is steadi­ly gain­ing mar­ket share, dri­ven by a need for safer pain al­ter­na­tives to NSAIDs, an ex­pand­ed dose op­tion, and launch in Eu­rope.

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