Swedish CDMO Recipharm said it sold one of its manufacturing sites in the U.K. and another in France in separate deals as part of its overall strategy to streamline business operations.
The separate sales, for which financials were not disclosed, come as Recipharm has continued its manufacturing expansion in the fill-finish sector of the industry.
China's Pharmaron snapped up (PDF) Recipharm’s Cramlington API manufacturing facility in Newcastle, U.K., which had been operating under Aescia Pharmaceuticals.
The Cramlington facility has more than 100 cubic meter reactor commercial capacity along with regulatory approval from a number of agencies including the FDA. The acquisition enhances Pharmaron’s U.K. operations in conjunction with its discovery, process development and early-stage cGMP API site at Hoddesdon.
“This transaction is another important step in realizing our vision of becoming a leading global provider of integrated small molecular drug R&D and manufacturing services,” Boliang Lou, Pharmaron’s chief excecutive, said in a statement.
In the second sale, newly established French CDMO Astrea Pharma bought Recipharm’s manufacturing site at Fontaine-lès-Dijon, France. Astrea focuses on small-molecule oral solid and aseptic dosages at the facility.
Under Recipharm’s ownership, the Fontaine plant developed extensive experience producing and packaging tablets and capsules, which Astrea said will help its goal of expanding into a broader range of different processing, filling and packaging technologies.
RELATED: CDMO Recipharm continues its rapid expansion with a second fill-finish facility, this time in India
In July last year, the CDMO announced plans to construct a fill-finish plant near Dehradun, India, in the Himalayan foothills in partnership with Nichepharm Lifesciences. Recipharm holds an 8% stake in Nichepharm. That facility will have a capacity to produce 1 billion units a year of vials filled with liquid and powder, lyophilized vials, dental cartridges and prefilled syringes.
The Dehradun announcement came just weeks after Recipharm announced that with the help of local pledges of $500 million it would build a fill-finish plant in Morocco that, when completed in 2023, will have the capacity to produce 300 million units annually.