Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is selling the Latin American and Asian businesses of its Mepha generics unit to Swiss drugmaker Acino.

The deal comes a couple of months after it was announced that Acino was going to buy the Middle East and African business of Cephalon, which had itself just been acquired by Teva. For that deal, Acino was going to pay 60 million euros in cash and 20 million euros in new shares but the total purchase price for the four business operations, plus the Mepha site in Aesch, Switzerland and certain other considerations now amounts to 94 million euros.

The firms noted that the plant in Aesch comprises a US Food band Drug Administration-compliant manufacturing facility, office space and an R&D unit focused on the development of oral formulations. Also, Mepha will transfer a number of its existing generic R&D development projects to Acino, and will continue to source products from the site in Aesch. The staff at the latter will be given the opportunity to continue their employment as part of Acino.

The latter firm expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive and chief executive Peter Burema said "this is a truly perfect fit in every respect". He added that "we have secured a foothold in important growth economies around the globe where we also intend to establish our own presence".