Fosun Pharma To Buy Gland Pharma for Up to $1.26 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. plans to buy Indian drugmaker Gland Pharma Ltd. for no more than $1.26 billion.

Fosun Pharma will acquire 86.08 percent of Gland Pharma, according to a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Thursday. Fosun Pharma plans to borrow up to $800 million from financial institutions to help fund the purchase, the company said.

The transaction, the largest purchase of an Indian asset by a Chinese company, would allow the acquirer to gain control of a new stable of injectable medicines as well as manufacturing facilities in India.

There have been a flurry of deals in the pharmaceutical industry globally as drugmakers seek to build their expertise in new areas or enter new markets. As of early July, Chinese firms had announced more than $3.9 billion in overseas acquisitions in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and health-care sectors this year, a tenfold increase from the amount spent in all of 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

In May, Fosun Pharma, backed by billionaire Guo Guangchang, said it had made a non-binding offer to buy 96 percent of Gland. Chen Qiyu, chairman of Fosun Pharma, one of the most active buyers in China’s health-care sector, said in an interview last year that he hoped to increase overseas revenue to as much as 40 percent of the total over the next five years via acquisitions.

Privately held Gland Pharma’s line up of therapies includes antibiotics, oncology and cardiology treatments. Shanghai-based Fosun Pharma’s product lines range widely from cardiovascular drugs and cancer treatments to diagnosis equipment and scalpels. 

The transaction is pending regulatory approval in China, India and the U.S., according to Fosun Pharma’s statement.

The company’s shares will resume trading in Shanghai on Friday after a one-day halt, a separate exchange filing showed.

--With assistance from Natasha Khan and Emma Dong To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Li Hui in Beijing at hli355@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anjali Cordeiro at acordeiro2@bloomberg.net, Darren Boey, Sunil Jagtiani

With assistance from Li Hui