Chinese company Tongfang Kontafarma, which is principally involved in making cement, said it reached a deal to acquire a 29% stake in Binex, the second largest CMO in South Korea behind Samsung.
If approved, the deal that was announced late last week would give Tongfang Kontafarma a big say in the pharmaceutical manufacturing company, 4 seats on Binex’s board of directors and more momentum in its push into the pharma arena. The Chinese company, which changed its name from Allied Cement in June, has said it planned to explore medical, pharmaceutical and health industry business in the future.
Earlier this year the company acquired a 60% equity interest in Beijing Ziguang Pharmaceutical Co., which manufactures prescription drugs, including injection powder, tablets, capsules, ointments, traditional Chinese medicine patent prescriptions, synthetic drugs, preparations, biochemical drugs and other biochemical products, the company said.
“This latest acquisition will allow the Group to establish presence in the international biopharmaceutical sector, as well as tap Binex's rich international CMO customer resources and business experience to speed up international authorization for the Group's innovative biomedicines under development and foster development of the international CMO business of its industrial base,” Huang Yu, chairman of Tongfang Kontafarma, said in a statement. “The acquisition will give the Group a solid foundation to develop into a world leading international biopharmaceutical company that focuses on innovation and industrialization.”
Binex has two biopharmaceutical factories that have passed Korean GMP certification, the European Qualified Person (QP) audit and the stringent on-site audits by international pharmaceutical giants such as Merck and Sanofi.