Pacira to Acquire Myoscience for $220 Million to Expand Non-Opioid Pain Management Portfolio

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that pharmaceutical company Pacira recently announced the acquisition of medical device company Myoscience for $220 million. The transaction is expected to close in early April 2019, with Pacira planning to incorporate Myoscience’s iovera° pain management device into its non-opioid product portfolio.

Following the completion of the acquisition, Pacira will change its corporate name to Pacira BioSciences to better reflect the company’s mission and purpose, and MyoScience will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Pacira, operating as Pacira CryoTech.

Founded in 2005, Myoscience is a private medical device company dedicated to developing targeted peripheral nerve therapies to alleviate chronic pain. The company has developed iovera°, a non-opioid therapeutic system that employs cryoanalgesia to safely freeze nerves and interrupt pain signal transmission while protecting surrounding tissues, thereby achieving rapid, immediate, and effective pain relief. iovera° has received FDA approval for providing up to 90 days of pain relief associated with osteoarthritis of the knee. Myoscience stated, “Our goal is to establish iovera° as the standard of care for treating both chronic and acute pain.”

Pacira, founded in 1989 and headquartered in California, USA, is a pharmaceutical company specializing in postoperative pain management. It is dedicated to developing alternatives to opioids, with EXPAREL (liposomal bupivacaine injectable suspension) as its flagship product. EXPAREL is the first and only multivesicular liposome-based local anesthetic that blocks pain signals in the body, thereby reducing opioid consumption. To date, EXPAREL has been used by more than 4.5 million patients.

Opioids, including pethidine and morphine, exhibit significant analgesic effects but carry a high risk of addiction. Currently, the crisis of opioid misuse and addiction in the United States is worsening. According to U.S. media reports, more than 64,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016. Former U.S. President Donald Trump stated, “The opioid epidemic is the most severe drug crisis in the United States and even worldwide.”

Pacira and Myoscience share the same goal: addressing the opioid abuse crisis by developing alternatives to opioids. iovera° and EXPAREL are highly complementary. Dave Stack, Chairman and CEO of Pacira, stated, “Many patients are seeking non-opioid options, and we believe that combining iovera° with EXPAREL can deliver superior pain relief, providing physicians and patients with more analgesic choices. We aim to redefine pain management and reduce or even eliminate the use of opioids.”

(Compiled by Jiao Yanli)