With tight scrutiny from the FDA, intense competition from generics companies and looming patent expirations, big pharma is busy pushing further into diversified fields like consumer products, branded generics and animal health. So if you were already a giant of consumer products — if, say, you were Procter & Gamble — why would you want to deal with the headaches of selling branded prescription drugs? Oh, right: You wouldn’t. P&G is on the verge of a deal to sell its prescription drug business for more than $3 billion to Warner Chilcott, the WSJ reports this morning. As we noted earlier this year, the company got into the business in the 1990s, a go-go era

when the prescription drugs business was full of innovation and fat profit. These days, having a prescription-drug unit makes less sense for the company. One reminder of that fact: A key issue in talks to sell the unit was a lawsuit over a patent dispute between P&G and a generics unit of Boehringer Ingelheim, the WSJ says. The suit involves P&G’s ulcerative colitis drug Asacol. P&G has won similar cases in the past, the article notes, including one against Teva that involved Actonel, the osteoporosis drug that is the division’s best-selling product. Photo: iStockphoto

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What the $3 Billion P&G Deal Says About the Drug Industry