In a meeting that took little more than five minutes, shareholders of Pleasant Ridge-based drug maker Duramed Pharmaceuticals Tuesday overwhelmingly voted in favor of a merger with Barr Laboratories.

        The deal, estimated to be worth $589 million, now goes to Barr shareholders. The Pomona, N.Y.-based company will have its shareholders meeting this afternoon.

        Approval would mean that the deal, announced in June, would close later this afternoon — essentially ending the independence of Duramed, the company that was founded in 1982 on Long Island and moved to its current location in 1984.

        “This is the end of a chapter, but we're encouraged about what we are going into,” Duramed chairman and chief executive officer E. Thomas Arington said while closing the brief meeting.

        Duramed, best known for its line of female hormonal products and oral contraceptives, would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Barr if the deal goes through, as expected.

        Under terms of the deal, Duramed shareholders will receive one share of Barr stock for every 3.9032 shares of Duramed.

        Owners of 63 percent of Duramed's 27,241,144 common shares voted on the deal by proxy, with 99 percent of the votes cast in favor of the merger. All those owning preferred stock voted in favor of the deal.

        Monday, Duramed posted its sixth straight record earnings report, with net profits of $4.3 million, or 15 cents a share.

        Barr posted its third-quarter earnings Tuesday, reporting net profit of $67.1 million on gross revenues of $309.8 million.

        Duramed's stock fell $1.96 Tuesday to close at $20.44, while Barr's stock fell $7.85 to $79.55 after the company barely exceeded analysts' estimates.

        Duramed officials said the process of combining administrative staffs will begin in the next two weeks. They said specifics on potential job losses on the administrative end were not yet available, but said that the company's production schedule could soon be increased.

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