Shares of Merus Labs rise after acquiring Sintrom from Novartis AG

Shares of Merus Labs (Merus Labs Stock Quote, Chart, News: TSX:MSL) are up this morning on heavier than normal volume after the company announced that one of its wholly owned subsidiaries had acquired, in certain European countries, the right to manufacture, market and sell Sintrom, an anticoagulant indicated for the treatment and prevention of thromboembolic diseases.

Sintrom has been available for more than half a century in Europe and generated sales of about (U.S) $28-million last year.

“We are pleased to have completed this product acquisition with Novartis, a top-tier pharmaceutical company,” said CEO Elie Farah. “The addition of this product will substantially increase the revenues and associated EBITDA of the company, as well as bring further scale and diversity to our existing product portfolio. We are also pleased to have entered into a new debt facility with a syndicate of lenders, which will assist with financing solutions for future product acquisition opportunities.”

Vancouver-based Merus Labs, which was founded in 2011, is a specialty pharma hopeful focused on commercializing mature assets in niche medical markets. The company’s lead product, marketed under the names Enablex and Emselex, is a prescription medicine used in adults to treat symptoms of overactive bladder. The product works by blocking the nerve signals that cause the bladder to involuntarily contract. Merus acquired the marketing rights to the product from from Novartis in July of last year. The company has two other products; Vancocin, a C.difficile treatment, and Factive, which treats chronic bronchitis and pneumonia.

At press time, shares of Merus Labs were up 2.2% as more than 1.8-million shares changed hands.

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