GSK buys Novartis stake in consumer healthcare venture for $13 billion

GlaxoSmithKline said on Tuesday it will buy Novartis’s 36.5 percent stake in their consumer healthcare joint venture for $13 billion in cash, and will also begin a strategic review of some other businesses.

GSK last week quit the race to buy Pfizer’s consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.

Instead it will take full control of the Novartis venture formed in 2015 whose products include Sensodyne toothpaste, Panadol headache tablets, muscle gel Voltaren, and Nicotinell patches used by smokers who want to quit their habit.

“The proposed transaction addresses one of our key capital allocation priorities and will allow GSK shareholders to capture the full value of one of the world’s leading consumer healthcare businesses,” Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said in a statement.

The deal would boost adjusted earnings and cash flows, helping accelerate efforts to improve performance, she said.