CollaGenex Investor Opposes Takeover

The shareholder, Jack W. Schuler, is chairman of medical waste management company Stericycle Inc. and a director of Medtronic Inc. He also served as chairman of Ventana Medical Systems Inc., which was acquired last month by Roche Holding AG.

Schuler said he owns 980,733 CollaGenex shares, which represents a 4.6 percent stake in the Newtown, Pa.-based company. He said the Schuler Family Foundation owns an additional about 294,190 shares, or a 1.4 percent stake.

Last month, privately held Galderma Pharma SA, a joint venture of Nestle and L'Oreal focused exclusively on skin-care products, said it would make a $16.60 per share cash tender offer for CollaGenex. The price represented a nearly 30 percent premium to the stock's previous closing price of $12.80.

"I am disappointed that the company is being acquired at this stage in its development before Oracea and CollaGenex's pipeline of new products have reached their full potential," Schuler said in a statement. Oracea, CollaGenex's rosacea treatment, booked fourth-quarter net sales of $15.2 million, or 91 percent of the company's product revenue for the period.

"I have not yet decided how to respond to Galderma's tender offer," Schuler said.

CollaGenex shares gained 8 cents to a 52-week high of $16.56 in afternoon trading.