Reckitt finalises pharmaceutical demerger plans
pharmafile | November 19, 2014 | News story | Business Services, Sales and Marketing | Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, cillit bang, indivior, suboxone
Reckitt Benckiser has confirmed its plans to spin-off its pharmaceutical portfolio from its core consumer products business.
Final details of the proposed separation were outlined earlier this week with the demerged RB Pharmaceuticals (RBP) being renamed as Indivior, and the process should be reach completion before Christmas.
“The demerger will allow the Indivior Group to allocate resources and deploy capital in a manner consistent with the priorities of the Indivior business,” the company says.
The split was first recommended in July after a strategic review by the company. Reckitt Benckiser is best known publicly in the UK as the maker of domestic goods such a Cillit Bang, Vanish and Nurofen, products – at odds with its pharmaceutical division’s focus on addiction treatments.
The firm hopes that separating its pharmaceutical business from its consumer side will allow both companies to focus more on core products.
RBP only has one marketed drug – the heroin addiction treatment Suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone). The business has been lucrative for the company in the past, bringing in sales of $1.2 billion (£767m) last year, but revenues have slid by 8% for the first half of this year as generic competition takes its toll.
Other treatments in its pipeline include its once-a-month injectable version of Suboxone, which it hopes to bring to market in 2017, and a drug overdose rescue nasal spray for use in emergencies that could come to market in the US in 2016.
George Underwood
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