Roche, which has been trying for two years to offload four small-molecule manufacturing plants around the world, will sell one in Spain to Recipharm in a deal that will save another 200 jobs.
As part of the arrangement to take over the plant in Leganés, Spain near Madrid, the Swedish CDMO has won a long-term manufacturing agreement to supply Roche with a number of solid dose products, a provision the Swiss drugmaker has used to find buyers for two other plants.
No financial terms were offered, but Recipharm said the plant will add €35 million (about $42 million) annually to its revenues. The CDMO, which agreed to keep 200 workers at the facility, said it will be able to coordinate work with a plant it already has in Parets near Barcelona, and the deal will allow it to realize “optimization opportunities” with Recipharm’s solids manufacturing network.
This is the third of four plants that Roche has sold since announcing in November 2015 that it would close facilities and eliminate 1,200 jobs in cost-cutting measures, even as it shifted more production toward manufacturing targeted drugs. Roche also has found buyers for plants in the U.S. and Segrate, Italy. Only a facility in Clarecastle, Ireland has been shuttered after a buyer couldn’t be found.
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When the company announced it was changing the trajectory of its manufacturing investments, Roche said it would spend about $300 million to build a new plant to manufacture targeted, high-potency small-molecule drugs at its massive site in Kaiseraugst near its Basel, Switzerland where it has about 10,400 employees.
RELATED: Roche to sell U.S. plant to Patheon, saving about 200 jobs
Last year, Patheon took over an API plant in Florence, South Carolina, again saving 200 jobs and winning a supply agreement from Roche.
Earlier this month, Roche said it had completed the sale of a solid and liquid formulation facility in Segrate, to French CMO Delpharm, which also reached a deal to supply the Swiss pharma giant with products produced at the plant and agreed to keep an unspecified number of jobs.