With its planned $255 million acquisition of Banner Pharmacaps, contract manufacturer Patheon ($PTI) will significantly increase its gelcap manufacturing and move into supplement manufacturing.
Patheon, which prides itself on its softgel manufacturing, Monday announced the proposed deal with VION, a Netherland-based manufacturer of foodstuffs and ingredients. Banner specializes in gelatin-based dosage forms. With the deal, which is slated to be complete by the end of the year, Patheon picks up four manufacturing facilities around the globe and 1,200 employees. Banner is headquartered in High Point, NC, where it has one manufacturing facility. It also has plants in Mexico, Canada, and the Netherlands.
According to the Banner website, the plant in Mexico includes a packaging and warehouse facility. At the Banner facility in Tiburg in the Netherlands, the company makes a lot of its softgel products. While that plant originally focused on dietary supplements, it has been expanding into pharmaceutical manufacturing, the company says.
In Canada, Banner has two facilities. One plant in Canada can produce product in bulk or packaged in airtight blister packs or bottles. In Canada, there is also a stand alone facility that can develop and manufacture cytotoxic, potent pharmaceuticals and new chemical entities. It has special environmental controls, segregated processing rooms and filtration systems and pressure differentials to protect both the internal and external environments. The facilities are approved by both FDA and Canadian authorities.
Patheon CEO James Mullen told Reuters that "(Banner) expands our geographic presence. It gives us ... a direct-to-market business in Mexico and some of the other Latin American countries."
As FierceCRO points out, Patheon has been in transition, selling off its secondary clinical packaging and clinical distribution services business last month after failing to find a buyer for its Swindon, U.K., manufacturing plant. Mullen said at the time that Patheon needed to focus on its core CMO business, and the Banner buy falls right in line with that.
- here's the release
- read the Reuters story
- here's more from FierceCRO