BRADLEY TO ACQUIRE LEXIS LABS FROM LPI HOLDINGS

BRADLEY TO ACQUIRE LEXIS LABS FROM LPI HOLDINGS for $1.7 mil in cash, the company announced Nov. 10. Bradley Pharmaceuticals said it has signed a letter-of-intent stage agreement to acquire the Lexis name and certain assets, including the trademark and distributorship rights to Lexis' N.E.E. generic oral contraceptive product. The transaction is expected to be completed by Dec. 10. Under the agreement, LPI would receive payment for its current inventory of N.E.E. products, a 5% royalty on N.E.E. sales in the U.S. for three years, and warrants to acquire 200,000 shares of Bradley Class A common stock at $2 per share. The acquisition of the N.E.E. (norethindrone/ethinyl estradiol) line is the first foray into the oral contraceptive market for Fairfield, N.J.-based Bradley, which specializes in niche-market products. Bradley said it intends to "aggressively increase the impact of N.E.E. products in the oral contraceptive market on a national scale through intense marketing and promotion strategies focusing on the cost advantages of alternate brand oral contraceptives." Lexis made news in 1989 when the company launched a $4.5 mil. direct-to-consumer ad campaign for its generic oral contraceptive ("The Pink Sheet" Feb. 13, 1989, T&G-3). TV and magazine ads compared N.E.E. 1/35 to Ortho's Ortho-Novum 1/35 and Syntex' Norinyl 1 + 35, emphasizing the bioequivalency of N.E.E. to the other two products at half the cost. Lexis now markets four strengths of N.E.E., including 1/35, 1/50, .5/35 and 10/11. Lexis' "Healthcheck" program, which was launched at the same time and offers rebates of $10 following completion of six cycles of N.E.E. and $20 after 12 cycles, has enrolled over 30,000 women to date. Bradley said the Healthcheck program "will be expanded." The firm plans to promote N.E.E. to the Hispanic community through its Coral Springs, Fla.-based RAM Laboratories subsidiary. The company acquired RAM in October for $150,000. Several LPI Holdings personnel will join Bradley as a result of the acquisition. LPI Holdings CEO John Bryer will become VP and chief operating officer of Bradley. The former Boots President will remain on the board of the holding company. LPI VP-Technical Affairs Amit Jhaveri becomes a Bradley VP and director of new product development and LPI VP-Regulatory Affairs Daniel Kaminski will join Bradley in the same position. LPI has several products in the pipeline that it will continue to develop independently, including an L-thyroxine product acquired from Glaxo. Bradley, which was founded in 1985 and went public in September 1990, had net sales in 1991 of $1.13 mil. and $854,000 in the first six months of FY 1992 (ended June 30). The company's lead product is Duadacin, a cough/cold decongestant product acquired from Hoechst-Roussel in August 1991. Other Bradley products include the prescription nasal decongestant product Tyzine (tetrahydrozoline) and Nitroglyn (nitroglycerin), both of which were acquired from Key Pharmaceutical in 1988.