Sterile drug manufacturing is a growth area, and a London-based investment fund has bitten off a piece of it with the acquisition of a U.S. CDMO that specializes in the field.
Management and private equity firm Permira is buying out Lyophilization Services of New England (LSNE) for an undisclosed sum. LSNE has three manufacturing facilities located in New Hampshire that provide lyophilization services to pharma, biotech and medical device clients. It specializes in small to medium-size batches.
Matt Halvorsen, who founded the company in 1997, will retain a significant ownership position and continue to be its CEO, Permira said. Claes Glassell, the former CEO of CMC Biologics, will become chairman of the board, provide management support and help with the company’s growth strategy.
There has been a significant amount of growth in contract sterile manufacturing in recent years as a growing proportion of new drugs are sterile injectables. In 2015, Pfizer snapped up sterile injectable and biosimilar specialist Hospira for $15 billion.
And last year, Germany’s Fresenius Kabi announced it would invest $250 million in its manufacturing site in Melrose Park, Illinois into a showcase for its sterile injectable capabilities. That came after Fresenius agreed to buy a nearly new 115,000-square-foot plant and small portfolio of products from Becton Dickinson, which built the plant in Wilson, North Carolina as a way to boost its syringe manufacturing sales.
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group last year struck a deal to buy an 86% stake in India’s Gland Pharma for $1.35 billion. Approval of that deal by Indian regulators was recently delayed. Hyderabad-based Gland has four manufacturing sites in India that handle a wide variety of container-types and fillings.
By Eric Palmer
Source: Fierce Pharma
CureVac and the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have announced a co-development and licensing agreement to develop novel messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines. The strategic collaboration will focus on the development of differentiated cancer vaccine candidates in selected haematological and solid tumour indications with high unmet medical needs.
FUJIFILM Corporation is planning to invest $1.2 billion to expand the planned FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. This news follows the organisation’s announcement of a $2 billion investment in the facility in March 2021. This additional financial boost totals the investment to over $3.2 billion, FUJIFILM confirmed.
Sanofi’s global restructuring and downsizing is now fully underway, with layoffs stretching to the company’s Belgian offices. Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports that 67 employees have been laid off at a site in Ghent and 32 jobs are on the chopping block at Sanofi’s Belgium HQ in Diegem.
