Pfizer to acquire Anacor Pharmaceuticals

NEW YORK — Pfizer announced Monday that it would be acquiring Anacor Pharmaceuticals for about $5.2 billion, a transaction that has been approved by both companies’ boards of directors. Currently, Anacor’s flagship asset, crisaborole — a non-steroidal topical PDE inhibitor with anti-inflammatory properties — is currently awaiting review from the Food and Drug Administration to treat mild to moderate eczema. 

 

“We believe the acquisition of Anacor represents an attractive opportunity to address a significant unmet medical need for a large patient population with mild-to-moderate atopic dermatitis, which currently has few safe topical treatments available,” Albert Bourla, group president of Pfizer’s global innovative pharma and global vaccines, oncology and consumer healthcare businesses, said. “Crisaborole is a differentiated asset with compelling clinical data that, if approved, has the potential to be an important first-line treatment option for these patients and the physicians who treat them.”

 

In addition to crisaborole, Anacor holds the rights to Kerydin, a topical toenail fungus treatment distributed and commercialized by Sandoz in the United States. Pfizer doesn’t expect the acquisition to impact its current financial guidance for 2016 and expects it to be slightly dilutive to adjusted dilutive earnings per share in 2017, with accretion beginning in 2018. The company expects the acquisition to close in the third quarter of 2016.