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| Xellia CEO Carl-Ake Carlsson |
Denmark-based Xellia Pharmaceuticals bought a manufacturing facility from Fresenius Kabi last year and kicked off a $100 million expansion project on the Raleigh, NC plant. Now the specialist in anti-infective treatments says it has decided it makes sense to have its U.S. commercial operations in the same locale.
Xellia has picked up office space next to the plant and begun relocating its staff from its current U.S. home in Grayslake, IL, making Raleigh its new North American headquarters.
"The U.S. is a key market for Xellia and the expansion is part of our long term growth strategy and commitment to manufacturing in the U.S. for our North American customers," Xellia CEO Carl-Åke Carlsson said in a statement. "Consolidating our state-of-the-art production facility with our commercial headquarters will enable us to better serve our many customers--both with respect to proximity and working relationship."
Xellia bought the plant from Fresenius Kabi in July 2014 for an undisclosed sum, taking on the 80 employees working there. A supply agreement with the German drugmaker, one of Xellia's long-term API clients, allows it to hit the ground with a guaranteed source of income. Two months later it announced plans to plow at least $100 million into the facility and hire another 40 people in the next 5 years.
Xellia was spun out of Alpharma in 2008 and then acquired by Novo Nordisk ($NVO) shareholder Novo A/S in 2013 for $700 million. The company has been building on its roots in active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing, establishing a freeze-dried vial facility in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2010. As part of its global expansion plans it also recently completed a $2 million expansion of its Croatian R&D facility.
- here's the release