Albany, NY-based contract manufacturer AMRI ($AMRI) has continued its buying spree for more and more diverse manufacturing capacity, and the deals are getting larger. Its latest is a $174 million deal for a drugmaker in Spain that makes specialty APIs and sterile injected drugs.
After picking up a manufacturing operation in Scotland and a couple in the U.S., including one for $110 million, the New York-based drug company said it has closed on a $174 million cash and stock deal to buy Gadea Pharmaceutical Group, a privately held company based in Valladolid, Spain. The deal was for $130.2 million in cash and 2.2 million shares of AMRI stock valued at $43.8 million, the company said in an announcement last week. Gadea founder and CEO Gerardo Gutierrez joins AMRI's board.
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| Courtesy of Gadea |
For its money, AMRI gets Gadea's development and production capabilities in both API and finished-dosage forms. It said that Gadea's Crystal Pharma business unit does large-scale commercial API production, specializing in steroids, high-potency hormones and sterile steroids. The privately held company, which will operate independently within AMRI's API unit, has forecast sales of between $80 million and $90 million in 2015.
AMRI CEO William Marth said the deal adds more muscle as the company bulks up its "complex drug development services" for the branded and generic pharmaceutical industry. One benefit of the deal, AMRI said, was getting Gadea's sterile manufacturing operations.
The company paid $41 million last year for Grafton, WI-based API maker Cedarburg, then followed that up with a $110 million deal for Oso Biopharmaceuticals Manufacturing to add that company's expertise in complex injectable drug products to its stable. In January, the company agreed to pay $60 million to buy two facilities from drug development specialist Aptuit. It got Aptuit's facility in Glasgow, Scotland, which specializes in developing injectable drugs and provides clinical stage manufacturing, and an operation in West Lafayette, IN, to beef up its analytical testing services to include peptides, proteins and oligonucleotides.
But it hasn't all been adding capacity for AMRI. The drugmaker said in April it would follow through with plans to close its API manufacturing site in Holywell, U.K., a move that will mean the loss of 62 jobs.
- here's the announcement
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