Lilly eyes emerging markets in Novartis animal-health deal

By Gus Trompiz PARIS (Reuters) – The purchase of Novartis’ animal-health business will strengthen Eli Lilly’s hand in emerging markets, tapping into growing demand there for protein-rich diets and household treatments for pets, a senior executive at the U.S. group said. As part of a multi-billion dollar revamp announced earlier on Tuesday, Swiss drugmaker Novartis said it would sell its animal-health arm to Lilly for about $5.4 billion, while also swapping assets with GlaxoSmithKline . Lilly said the deal would turn its Elanco unit from the world’s No. 4 animal-health group by revenue to the global No. 2 in a sector that supplies medicines, vaccines and feed additives for farm and domestic animals. “This deal really allows us to get a significant increase in our footprint in emerging markets and in our protein business on the food animal side this will be very important for us,” Jeff Simmons, Eli Lilly’s senior vice president and president of Elanco, told Reuters.