Recipharm buying Italian specialist

Recipharm has been continent-hopping to do a series of deals that expand both its geographic reach and its capabilities. Last fall, it struck a deal to buy an Indian company, and now the Sweden-based contract manufacturer says it is snapping up an antibiotics specialist in Italy.

Recipharm announced on Tuesday that it has struck a €68 million ($74.9 million) deal for family-owned Mitim Srl, a CDMO that specializes in the filling of injectable beta lactam products. The company is based in Brescia, where it has a plant with 5 production lines. According to Recipharm, Mitim has invested more than €12 million in its plant since 2012, including adding a production line for injectable beta lactams in March 2015.

The company has 250 people and a portfolio of products, much of it sold in the U.S., which generated about €42.5 million last year. The product portfolio includes beta lactams in dry sterile powder for injectable solutions, tablets and oral suspensions. Other products include injectable sterile solutions, oral solids and liquids as well as semisolids.

Recipharm CEO Thomas Eldered

"This acquisition is very exciting for Recipharm and represents an important step in our consolidation of the CDMO industry," CEO Thomas Eldered said in a statement. "The transaction also … provides Recipharm not only with additional scale but also opportunities to realize commercial and operational synergies as we combine it with our existing Italian business."

Recipharm bought Milan-based Corvette Pharmaceutical Services Group in 2014 for about $164.5 million. It picked up three plants in the Milan area in that deal, including one that manufactures sterile beta lactam antibiotics.

Recipharm said last month it was close to wrapping up a deal announced last fall in which it will pay $105.2 million to buy a 74% stake in Nitin Lifesciences, a family-owned sterile injectables CMO. Last year, it also worked a deal with Novartis' ($NVS) Alcon unit to buy Kaysersberg Pharmaceuticals for €18 million ($19.7 million). With the deal, Recipharm gets a manufacturing plant in Kaysersberg, France, with a line of products that it will supply to Novartis through a long-term manufacturing agreement.

- here's the announcement