Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. announced today that Valeant has agreed to acquire OraPharma, a specialty oral health company that develops and commercializes products that improve and maintain oral health, from Water Street Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm focused exclusively on the health care industry.  Total consideration is approximately $312 million and up to $114 million in potential contingent payments based on certain milestones, including revenue targets.  OraPharma’s lead product is Arestin, a locally administered antibiotic for the treatment of periodontitis that utilizes an advanced controlled-release delivery system and is indicated for use in conjunction with scaling and root planing for the treatment of adult periodontitis. OraPharma currently has the largest specialized pharmaceutical salesforce in the dental industry and, as of March 31st, 2012, OraPharma’s trailing twelve month net revenue was approximately $95 million with the business growing at a high single digit rate.

The transaction is expected to close in June 2012, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions, and is expected to be accretive in 2012.

“We are excited to enter a new attractive market segment with an already established sales infrastructure focused entirely on the dental community,” said J. Michael Pearson, chairman and chief executive officer. “We believe that this market segment has similar characteristics to the dermatology, podiatry and ophthalmology markets and should offer us the opportunity to cross-sell some of our current products, most notably our new topical prescription cold sore medication, Xerese.  We believe the OraPharma business is a new growth platform from which to build additional opportunities in the future.”