Aegerion, QLT merge to form Novelion

Beleaguered Aegerion Pharmaceuticals will merge with a subsidiary of QLT to form a rare disease-focused company named Novelion Therapeutics. A group of investors will sink roughly $22 million into QLT, bringing Novelion’s total cash to more than $100 million. Novelion’s portfolio will include two approved drugs—Aegerion’s Juxtapid, a treatment for a rare form of high cholesterol, and the leptin analogue Myalept—and QLT’s drug for rare eye diseases, which is on the cusp of Phase III studies. In February, Aegerion laid off 25% of its workforce after the arrival of competitors to Juxtapid.