LONDON/ZURICH — Swiss food group Nestlé stepped up its drive into the fast-growing skincare market on Wednesday, buying the rights to several treatments for facial lines and wrinkles from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International for $1.4bn in cash.The world’s biggest food group by sales, with brands including KitKat chocolate, Gerber baby food and Nescafé coffee, signalled its ambitions in the skincare industry in February by taking over the Galderma dermatology venture it had with L’Oréal.Monday’s move gives Nestlé the North American rights to some products taken on in that deal, boosting its control of the brands and avoiding the situation with KitKat, to which rival Hershey owns the rights in the US.Citing data from Global-Data’s Facial Aesthetics, Vontobel analysts said the US market for Botox and other wrinkle fillers was set to grow from $2.5bn in 2013 to $4.7bn in 2018 — compound annual growth of 13.5%."These figures speak for themselves and explain how strategic the deal is for...
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