Viatris to Buy Pacira BioSciences for $1.65 Billion in Non-Opioid Pain Bet

Viatris is paying up to get deeper into pain relief without opioids. The drugmaker said Thursday it has agreed to acquire Pacira BioSciences for $1.65 billion in cash at $36.50 a share, a premium of roughly 45% to Wednesday's close, adding two marketed non-opioid pain drugs to a portfolio it is steering toward higher-value branded medicines.

Pacira BioSciences is about to disappear from the Nasdaq. Viatris's $36.50-a-share cash offer — 44.8% above Wednesday's close — values the pain-therapy maker at $1.65 billion and sets up one of the year's cleaner pharma takeouts: a definitive agreement, a full price, and a stock already trading like the deal is done.

The deal on the table

Viatris Inc. and Pacira BioSciences announced a definitive agreement Thursday morning: Viatris will acquire all of Pacira's outstanding shares for $36.50 apiece in cash, for an aggregate equity value of $1.65 billion. The offer represents a 44.8% premium to Pacira's $25.20 closing price on Wednesday. The companies expect the transaction to close by the end of 2026, and Viatris said the deal would be immediately accretive to its financial guidance metrics.

Viatris plans to fund the purchase primarily with excess cash, covering the remainder with short-term borrowings. The company said the transaction would have minimal impact on its gross leverage ratio — a signal it intends to keep its balance-sheet flexibility intact for whatever comes next.

What Viatris is buying

Pacira's commercial engine is two drugs: Exparel, used to manage acute pain after surgery, and Zilretta, a treatment for pain tied to osteoarthritis of the knee. Both are marketed, patent-protected, and high-margin — exactly the profile Viatris has been hunting as it tries to tilt its revenue mix away from generics. Together they generated net product sales of $575.1 million and $116.6 million, respectively, in 2025.

Viatris said it expects to take the two products into select international markets through its global infrastructure. That is the acquirer's edge in this deal: Pacira built the drugs; Viatris owns the worldwide commercial machine to sell them more broadly.

The meloxicam hinge

The strategic center of the deal is Viatris's fast-acting meloxicam, a candidate for moderate-to-severe acute pain now under Food and Drug Administration review, with a target action date of Dec. 27. Chief Executive Scott Smith said the Pacira acquisition is synergistic with the meloxicam opportunity and positions the company as a leader in non-opioid pain management therapies.

The sequencing matters. If meloxicam is approved in December, Viatris would enter 2027 with three complementary non-opioid pain assets — two acquired, one homegrown — just as hospitals and payers keep hunting for alternatives to opioids in postsurgical care.

The tape's verdict: full price, done deal

The market treated the premium as rich and the outcome as certain. Pacira shares jumped about 44% in morning trading, landing just cents below the $36.50 offer — the classic tell that investors expect the deal to close and see little chance of a higher bid. Viatris shares slipped nearly 2%, the customary acquirer's dip on a full-price deal.

Oppenheimer analyst Les Sulewski called the premium a “full price” and said he saw limited antitrust overlap between the two companies. He also noted activist pressure on Pacira that has persisted since November 2025 — useful context for why Pacira's board accepted a cash exit now rather than waiting for its pipeline to re-rate the stock.

Why now for Viatris

This is the clearest expression yet of Viatris's pivot from its generics roots. The company raised its annual adjusted profit forecast in August, helped by strong branded-drug sales and growth in China — but it has also been fighting manufacturing setbacks in India, including a fire at its Nashik plant, and intensifying competition in generics. Buying marketed, patent-protected medicines is the fastest way to change what the company is.

The two dates that decide it

The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to customary conditions. The nearer catalyst is Dec. 27 — the FDA's decision on fast-acting meloxicam, which determines whether Viatris's pain platform launches 2027 as a two-drug tuck-in or a three-asset franchise. After that, watch how quickly Exparel and Zilretta show up in Viatris's international markets; that expansion is where the strategic premium has to earn its keep.