Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International has raised the cash component of its unsolicited offer for Botox-maker Allergan.

This values the US firm at $49.44 billion and ratchets up pressure on the target company.

Valeant's sweetened offer also included a contingent value right that could be worth an additional $7.6 billion.

Valeant today offered to pay $58.30 per Allergan share in cash, about $10 higher than its previous offer of $48.30. The stock component of the offer remains the same at 0.83 of a Valeant share for each Allergan share. 

The new offer values Allergan at $166.16 per share as of yesterday's closing price, and is about 8.6% higher than the previous bid of $153 on April 22 when Valeant first made its offer. 

That offer, by Valeant and activist investor Bill Ackman, was worth $47 billion and was spurned by Allergan, which said the Canadian company had overstated possible savings from the deal.

Valeant's pursuit of Allergan comes during one of the busiest periods for M&A in the pharmaceutical sector.

The offer is lower than $180-$200 per share that investors were looking for, according to an investor survey last week.

But the new offer also includes a contingent value right of up to $25 per share related to the sales of Darpin, Allergan's experimental eye drug that is seen as a potential competitor to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals successful medicine Eylea. 

"Allergan shareholders want this deal to occur, but they want a higher price and the optionality on Darpin," Valeant's chief executive Michael Pearson said in a meeting in New York with about 300 shareholders of the two companies. 

"We think the offer we made this morning addresses both of those concerns."

Allergan said it will review and consider the revised proposal.

Separately, Valeant said today it would sell some of its skincare treatments business, including facial fillers for treating wrinkles, to Nestle for $1.4 billion in cash. 

That sale suggests Nestle is not a potential white knight acquirer for Allergan, and removes a possible competition risk to a Valeant-Allergan merger, analysts said.