Mitsubishi has been building up its pharmaceutical business and is expanding it further with a new deal to partner up with an API producer in India.
The Japanese company is investing an undisclosed amount so that Hyderabad-based Neuland Laboratories can expand its API production in India and dedicate it to Mitsubishi. The manufacturing collaboration is with Tokyo-based API Corporation (APIC), a unit of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group. The deal follows by several months Mitsubishi's decision to buy Japan-based capsulemaker Qualicaps for about $650 million.
APIC President Taiichi Emura said in a release that Neuland's track record and "business model of being solely focused on API and intermediates" makes it an ideal partner. Neuland currently has two FDA-approved plants and about 1,000 employees. It does contract manufacturing as well as making generic APIs and complex intermediates.
D.R. Rao, chairman and managing director of the Indian company, said in a release: "We have recently been strengthening our presence in the Japanese market, while APIC was seeking an Indian partner to better serve customers. This alliance will allow us to raise our profile in Japan while enabling our partner APIC to grow their business in a cost-effective way."
In December, Mitsubishi announced its plans to buy Qualicaps from private equity investor the Carlyle Group ($CG). The deal is slated to close this month. Mitsubishi said the buyout of Qualicaps was a great tie-in with what Mitsubishi already does in the API market. The Deal Pipeline reported at the time that Mitsubishi has been shedding some of its petrochemical holdings and beefing up its pharmaceutical business.
- here's the release