Actavis looks internally and externally for growth
pharmafile | February 10, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Actavis, genericsÂ
Actavis is planning to increase the size of its manufacturing site in Iceland in order to boost output to around 1.5 billion tablets a year, a 50% hike on its current capacity.
The generic drugmaker is in expansive mood at the moment, with this latest announcement coming as it bids to take over German rival Ratiopharm, competing with the world’s biggest generics company Teva and pharmaceutical major Pfizer. The bids have not been disclosed but are expected to be in the region of three billion euros.
Actavis has gone head-to-head in bidding wars with Teva before, for example in 2007 when both tried to acquire Merck KGaA’s generics business. On that occasion both Teva and Actavis eventually lost out to US company Mylan.
Actavis’ organic investment at the solid oral dosage form manufacturing site in Hafnarfjordur is designed to improve capacity for Actavis generic drugs pipeline and is scheduled to come online by the end of the year.
“The site produces many of Actavis’ latest generics and specialises in new product launches,” said the generic drugmaker in a statement. It also houses the company’s development centre for new generic drugs.
Actavis hf, as the site is known, produces a number of the firm’s growth products including cholesterol medication atorvastatin magnesium, which was first launched in Spain last October, and epilepsy treatment topiramate which launched in the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland in September 2009.
The expansion boosts the headcount at the factory from 300 to 350, out of a total of around 10,000 worldwide in the Actavis group.
Meanwhile, Actavis is also exiting businesses that are not in its core generic pharmaceuticals focus. Earlier this month it announced the sale of Norgesplaster, a Norway-based manufacturing facility for plasters and athletic tape and adhesive coating, via an investor-backed management buyout.
Actavis bought Norgesplaster in December 2005 as part of the acquisition of the generics division of Alpharma.
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