EU approves Teva bid for Allergan's generics with conditions

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Thursday approved Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' $40.5 billion (£28.6 billion) acquisition of the generics activities of Allergan conditional on a number of divestments, notably Allergan businesses in Britain and Ireland.

Reuters earlier reported that Teva was expected to win EU antitrust approval after agreeing to sell off some of its activities.

The Commission said in a statement it had had concerns that the merged entity would have faced insufficient competition for a number of generic pharmaceuticals as well as in generics overall in Britain, Ireland and Iceland.

To address these concerns, the two companies had offered to divest each of the marketed molecules and molecules in development pipeline in 24 European countries, Teva's portfolio in Iceland and the great majority of Allergan's generics activities in Britain and Ireland.

"Following an extensive market test, the Commission found that the commitments address the competition concerns identified and concluded that the proposed transaction, as modified by the commitments would raise no competition concerns," the Commission said in a statement.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Robert-Jan Bartunek)