Allergan Repeatedly Increased Offer For Tobira Before Sealing Deal

(RTTNews) - Allergan Inc. (AGN) repeatedly revised and sweetened its offer for Tobira Therapeutics Inc. before sealing a deal to acquire the maker of a potential treatment for liver disease.

From its starting bid to the final offer, and despite the failure of a trial in between, Allergan raised the value of its offer by $145 million, according to a regulatory filing by the company on Monday.

On July 5, two weeks after leaders of the two companies met for dinner in New York, Allergan offered $310 million upfront, plus additional payments of up to $1.24 billion if Tobira's drug succeeded on all metrics in its mid-stage trial, which was ongoing, according to the documents. Then Tobira announced that the drug failed in its primary goal of improvement in a broad measure that includes multiple factors of the disease, but met a secondary goal of improving liver fibrosis without worsening NASH.

Despite the failure, Allergan revised its offer three times more from Aug. 26 through September 6, increasing the upfront payment offer to $450 million, with an addition $950 million in potential milestone payments if certain trial and sales goals were met.

Tobira received a proposal from another potential purchaser and informed Allergan of the competition on Sept 17. Allergan increased its offer twice more to $595 million upfront and $1.1 billion in potential milestone payments, closing a deal on September 19.