Allergan Inc., the maker of the wrinkle remover Botox, will pursue a younger crowd, spending $150 million to acquire a new acne drug from Canada's QLT Inc.

The drug, Aczone, is the ``first new chemical entity'' approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat acne in several years, Allergan said today in a statement. Aczone is a gel form of the leprosy and malaria treatment dapsone. The acne treatment will become available in the U.S. and Canada during the fourth quarter, Allergan said.

The Irvine, California, company expects sales of the product to reach more than $75 million a year at their peak, according to the statement, and the purchase won't subtract from earnings this year. Allergan sells other skin treatments, including the psoriasis drug Tazorac, in addition to Botox. The company also sells breast implants and eye-care products, for total revenue of $3.94 billion last year.

QLT, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, said in January it would sell Aczone as part of a restructuring. QLT will concentrate instead on further development of Visudyne along with other eye drugs. The Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG sells Visudyne, a treatment for vision loss. Revenue from the drug has been declining.

The shares of QLT rose 13 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $3.93 at 4:30 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Allergan rose 12 cents, or less than a percent, to $57.54 on the New York Stock Exchange.