Generic drug maker Mylan may buy Swedish rival Meda: FT

(Reuters) - Generic drug maker Mylan Inc is looking to buy Swedish rival Meda AB in a deal that would create a $23 billion pharmaceutical company, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. The exact value of the deal is unknown but Mylan is likely to pay a "significant" premium to Meda's market value, a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times. Meda's market valuation stood at 29.5 billion Swedish krona ($4.5 billion) at the end of trading on Thursday while Mylan's market value was $18.5 billion. Pennsylvania-based Mylan has appointed advisers to help it put together a deal for Meda, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times. (http://link.reuters.com/veb38v) Generic drugs continues to be a hotly contested sector with Mylan suing Celgene Corp on Thursday to stop the latter's effort to keep generic versions of two drugs that generate $4.5 billion of annual sales off the market. Last year, Mylan bought Agila, a unit of India's Strides Arcolab Ltd, for $1.6 billion to expand its presence in the fast-growing generic injectable drugs market. Mylan's Nasdaq-listed shares closed down about 2 percent at $49.86 on Thursday. Officials for Mylan and Meda were not immediately available to comment on the FT report. (Reporting By Shubhankar Chakravorty in Bangalore; editing by Andrew Hay)