Hikma gets large U.S. plant in Boehringer Ingelheim generics deal

Last year when Hikma bought Boehringer Ingelheim's Ben Venue injectable business, it decided not to reopen its long-troubled Bedford, OH, plant. But with a $2.65 billion deal announced today for Boehringer's Roxane generics business, it gets a U.S. manufacturing plant that it says it likes the looks of.

Hikma already has a U.S.manufacturing base through West-Ward, a maker of sterile injectables. But with the cash and stock deal to acquire Roxane, it will pick up an 875,000-square-foot manufacturing site in Columbus, OH, where Roxane also has its R&D and marketing operations. Hikma is also taking on the 1,360 Roxane employees.

Michael Raya, West-Ward CEO, noted in a statement that the deal gets Hikma "well invested, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities," in addition to broadening its non-injectables business.

The plant manufactures 88 products, and while its particular strength is in immediate-release solids, it also produces liquid, dry powder inhaler and nasal spray dosage forms. It also makes high-potency products, technically complex formulations and controlled substances.

When Hikma bought Boehringer's Ben Venue Laboratories last year in a $300 million deal, it also got a massive, but troubled, sterile manufacturing site in Bedford, OH. The German company had closed the plant at the end of 2013 and laid off its 1,300 employees after deciding that the business was not worth the additional investment to satisfy an FDA consent decree. Hikma agreed with that assessment and, rather than reopen the facility, stripped out the newer equipment and shipped it off to some of its other manufacturing sites.

Today's deal will further link the two. Boehringer is getting $1.18 billion in cash but also taking 40 million shares in the business. That will give Boehringer a stake of about 16.7%.

- here's the announcement