China’s 3SBio, as part of a joint venture with CPE Funds, seeks to buy Canadian CDMO Therapure Biomanufacturing for $290 million, pending shareholder approval.
The purchase is part of 3SBio’s plan to enter into the growing North American biopharma sector and build its global biologics business, the company said.
"This is a key milestone of the global expansion strategy of our biologics manufacturing business, adding a high-quality asset and leadership team in Canada that will serve as a platform for growth,” Dr. Jing Lou, 3SBio’s chairman, said in a statement.
If completed, 3SBio would pick up more than 340 biologics professionals in North America, who focus on operations and management, market development, R&D and manufacturing. The deal would also combine the Chinese company’s mammalian cell culture capabilities and Therapure's downstream purification and plasma source technologies.
The biologics market, particularly in the U.S., has been expanding at a quick pace.
In July, CMC Biologics, which was acquired earlier in the year by Japanese conglomerate AGC Asahi Glass, said it would hire up to 150 more employees at its operation in the Seattle area as the company makes the location the center of the biologics-based CDMO business it is growing.
Other Japanese companies also have made the move into biologics. Fujifilm, looking to expand beyond its declining film business, jumped into biologics manufacturing in 2011 when it reportedly paid about $490 million to buy biologics plants in North Carolina and Northeast England from Merck & Co. and created Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies.