Topic: How To Invest

Pat: What do you think of buying shares of Concordia Healthcare? I’d appreciate your insight. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

Concordia Healthcare Corp., $38.72, symbol CXR on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 51.0 million; Market cap: $1.9 billion; www.concordiarx.com), is an Oakville, Ontario-based company that acquires and sells the rights to established drug treatments, mainly in the U.S. Concordia aims to control the rights to relatively small, mature products as opposed to the newer treatments that larger pharmaceutical firms target. Its main products include Donnatal, for irritable bowel syndrome and acute enterocolitis; Zonegran, for epilepsy; and Photofrin, a cancer drug. In April 2015, the company paid $1.2 billion for 12 branded drugs and five generic products from Covis Pharma (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). These include Nilandron (prostate cancer); Dibenzyline (vascular disease); Lanoxin (heart disorders); and Plaqueni (lupus and rheumatoid arthritis). The Covis products added $145 million to Concordia’s annual revenue, and the company feels it can save $20 million a year by eliminating overlapping operations. In September 2015, Concordia purchased Amdipharm Mercury Limited for $3.5 billion. Following the Amdipharm…