Veterinary pharmaceutical giant Zoetis Inc. has agreed to purchase Abbott Animal Health for $255 million, giving Zoetis such products as the AlphaTrak blood glucose monitoring system, the anesthesia drug PropoFlo and the feline pain reliever Simbadol. The transaction, announced today, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015. Zoetis is the world’s largest animal health company, with 2013 revenue of $4.6 billion. Abbott Animal Health is minuscule by comparison, with annual revenue of about $80 million, a spokesman said. “The addition of Abbott Animal Health assets is an excellent complement to the Zoetis companion animal business and addresses the challenges our customers face today in effectively raising and caring for animals that are living longer and receiving more intensive medical and surgical treatment,” said Zoetis CEO Juan Ramón Alaix. Abbott’s strength is in the veterinary surgical suite, while Zoetis has focused on vaccines and medications for pets and livestock. “This acquisition strengthens our pain portfolio and our diagnostics business so we can deliver more customized solutions to veterinarians,” Alaix said. Abbott Animal Health, a division of the global health care company Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Ill., does business in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and across Europe. Abbott’s veterinary business has interests in anesthesia, fluid therapy, pain management, oncology, wound care and nutritionals. Among the company’s other products are the anesthesia drugs SevoFlo (sevoflurane) and IsoFlo (isoflurane, USP), the GLUture topical tissue adhesive for wound care, MicroClave IV sets for fluid therapy, and CliniCare liquid diets for cats and dogs. “The acquisition also brings novel cancer and pain compounds to the Zoetis pipeline for further development,” Florham Park, N.J.-based Zoetis reported.
