Advent International and Avista Capital Partners have signed an agreement to acquire Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals Inc., the U.S. specialty generic pharmaceuticals subsidiary of global biopharmaceuticals company UCB, S.A., for $1.525 billion. The transaction is expected to close by the first quarter of 2015.

Over the past seven years, Kremers has diversified and grown its product portfolio from one major product to more than 20 marketed products across a number of indications, including gastroesophageal reflux disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, angina/hypertension and respiratory disease. Kremers has established itself as a leading participant in the generic pharmaceuticals sector by focusing on high barrier to entry drugs with characteristics such as extended release formulas, unusual dosage forms such as patches, liquids and injectables and scheduled substances.        

As part of the transaction, Brian Markison, currently a healthcare industry executive at Avista, will become president and chief executive officer of Kremers, succeeding George Stevenson, who is pursuing other interests. Mr. Markison has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceuticals sector, most recently as president and chief executive officer of Fougera Pharmaceuticals, a dermatology-focused specialty pharmaceuticals company that was spun off from Nycomed A/S in 2011 and sold to Sandoz, the generics division of Novartis, in July 2012. Before leading Fougera, Mr. Markison was chairman and chief executive officer of King Pharmaceuticals.

“Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals is a strong, specialty player in a rapidly growing and changing global generics industry, and we believe it will thrive as an independent entity as the adoption of generics continues to rise worldwide,” said John Maldonado, a managing director at Advent International. “We are excited to partner with Avista and Kremers’ leadership team to position the company for continued long-term growth.”

“We believe Advent and Avista are best positioned to drive Kremers Urban’s growth to the next stage in the specialty generic market,” said Dr. Roch Doliveux, chief executive officer of UCB. “UCB’s growing core business and rapidly progressing early and late stage pipeline now allows us to focus even more on innovative solutions in neurology and immunology.”