Swiss food group Nestle stepped up its drive into the fast-growing skincare market on Wednesday, buying the rights to several treatments for facial lines and wrinkles from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International for $1.4 billion in cash.The world's biggest food group, with brands including KitKat chocolate bars, Gerber baby food and Nescafe coffee, signalled its ambitions in skincare in February by taking over the Galderma dermatology venture it had with L'Oreal.Wednesday's move gives Nestle the North American rights to some products taken on in that deal, boosting its control of the brands and avoiding the situation with KitKat, to which rival Hershey owns the rights in the United States.Citing data from GlobalData Facial Aesthetics, Vontobel analysts said the U.S. market for Botox and other wrinkle fillers, is set to grow from $2.5 billion in 2013 to $4.7 billion in 2018 - compound annual growth of 13.5 percent.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., formerly Biovail Corporation, is a multinational, specialty pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets a range of pharmaceutical products. Shares of VRX fell by 2.63% or $-3.51/share to $129.95. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $81.94 and as high as $153.10. On average, 2938120 shares of VRX exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 4363751.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., formerly Biovail Corporation, is a multinational, specialty pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and markets a range of pharmaceutical products. Shares of VRX fell by 1.85% or $-2.66/share to $141.04. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $83.39 and as high as $170.45. On average, 389198 shares of VRX.TO exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 399916.
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