UK contractor Excelsyn sold to AMRI
pharmafile | February 19, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | AMRI, Excelsyn
UK contract development and manufacturing services company Excelsyn has been bought for $19 million by US rival AMRI, which said the move gives it an ‘immediate presence’ in the European manufacturing sector.
Excelsyn, based in Holywell, North Wales, provides development and large scale manufacturing services to drugmakers around the world and employs 60 people.
The CMO’s manufacturing facility has a kilo lab, a pilot plant and large-scale manufacturing capabilities and brought in revenues of around $15 million last year.
AMRI (Albany Molecular Research Inc) said the deal gives it “a significant cost competitive option for conducting development/manufacturing work, particularly in the production of chemical intermediates.”
The company has been seeking deals to expand its international presence for some time – particularly n Europe and Asia – in order to achieve the scale needed to secure strategic-level partnerships with large pharma companies.
Excelsyn offers manufacturing and development services from preclinical to phase III and commercial, and it is thought to be the large-scale operations that have attracted AMRI, as well as its close proximity to European customers which do not overlap with AMRI’s client base.
The Excelsyn site at Holywell will be managed by Dr. David Rowles, who will report to Dr. Steve Hagen, AMRI’s vice president of pharmaceutical development and manufacturing.
“We believe this acquisition will increase our ability to penetrate a market space relatively untapped to date, including customers in large pharma based in Europe,” said AMRI’s chief executive Dr. Thomas D’Ambra.
The acquisition comes at a time when AMRI – like many of its peers in the outsourcing sector – has been wrestling with declining contract revenues as the drug industry retrenches. That drove the firm to a net loss of $19 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, with revenue for the year at $196 million, down from $229 million in 2008.
AMRI’s large-scale manufacturing division was particularly hard hit, with revenues down 45% in the fourth quarter at around $13 million.
However, AMRI says it is poised for a recovery in the market. It has started re-hiring at its non-US operations, particularly in Asia, and has been investing in new facilities, including R&D labs in Budapest, Hungary, and Washington, USA.
“AMRI is well positioned to capitalise on a growing outsourcing market,” said D’Ambra.
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