King Pharmaceuticals Sold To Pfizer in $3.6 Billion

Pfizer agreed on Tuesday to buy King Pharmaceuticals, a maker of pain medications, for $3.6 billion in cash.

Pfizer Inc.’s $3.6 billion purchase of King Pharmaceuticals Inc. adds abuse-resistant narcotics to help the drugmaker expand its share of the $22 billion market for painkillers.

Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, will pay $14.25 a share in cash, a 40 percent premium over King’s closing price yesterday, for the morphine pill Embeda and two other tamper- resistant painkillers turned away once by U.S. regulators. The companies announced the deal today and expect it to close by the first quarter of 2011.