Canada’s Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc  will sell  to China’s Sanpower Group its Dendreon cancer business for $819.9 million.

With this sale, Valeant will exit oncology, one of its non-core therapeutic areas, in order to focus on its core businesses.

“With this sale, we are better aligning our product portfolio with Valeant’s new operating strategy by exiting the urological oncology business, which is one of our non-core assets,” Valeant Chief Executive Joseph Papa said in a statement on Monday.

Dendreon makes prostate cancer vaccine Provenge that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2010.
The Dendreon sale is expected to close in the first half of 2017.

After the completion of the acquisition, Sanpower Group plans to accelerate Provenge sales penetration in the United States and also align its own resources to introduce Provenge to China and other major markets in Asia.

Source: The NewYork Times, The Wall Stree Journal, Sanpower Group press release