Fermion plots €30M Finland API site expansion

Finland’s Fermion plans to spend €30 million to expand an API plant in Hanko--its largest investment in company history--in a move to support current and future business and to meet “tightening regulatory requirements.”

Beginning this summer and wrapping up in Q2 2018, the project will add capacity for both standard and potent APIs, according to Fermion’s release. The expansion will add more than 100 metric tons of capacity to the site's current annual capacity of 300 metric tons, Fermion said in a release. Hanko is currently Fermion’s fourth largest plant. Upon completion, the expanded site also will have extra space for future equipment, the company said.

There is signficant expansion and consolidation in the CMO industry right now, and Fermion joins peers Recipharm and Olon in bulking up in the field. Last month, Swedish CDMO Recipharm inked a $205 million deal for India’s Kemwell, getting its first U.S. site and drug development operations in Sweden and India. The first portion of that deal--$85 million for Kemwell’s operations in Sweden and the Research Triangle Park, NC, drug development biz Cirrus Pharmaceuticals--closed Monday. It is awaiting regulatory approval to buy Kemwell's API business in India. 

Recipharm also recently acquired a 74% stake in India’s Nitin Lifesciences for $102 million, getting three sterile injectables plants in that deal. 

In a separate move, Italian API maker Olon said this week it’ll join forces with competitor Infa following a buyout by its ownership group for an undisclosed sum.

- here's the release

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