Nestlé has purchased outright the maker of a treatment for peanut allergies in which it has escalated investment over the last few years.
Aimmune Therapeutics will be acquired by Nestlé in a $2.6 billion deal that includes debt. Aimmune makes Palforzia, a drug for sufferers of severe peanut allergies. It doesn’t cure allergies but, in a regimen that takes about 11 months of increasing doses, it makes them less virulent and reduces the consequences of accidental exposure.
Nestlé had invested a total of $473 million in Aimmune, with the second round coming after Palforzia won FDA approval in January. The move is seen as a way to shore up the company’s health sciences business, which CEO Mark Schneider, a former health-care executive who took over in 2017, sees as a growth area.
