U.S. biotech firm Savient Pharmaceuticals Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday and said that it has agreed to sell most of its assets to Sloan Holdings CV for about $55 million. The agreement with Sloan, a unit of US WorldMeds LLC, would serve as a stalking-horse bid in a court-supervised auction of Savient's assets. The drugmaker, which has been under pressure from its largest creditor to liquidate, said it would keep its gout drug Krystexxa commercially available in the U.S. Savient listed total assets of about $74 million and liabilities of $260 million as of June 30, court documents filed on Monday showed.
