CMO WellSpring brought by private equity firms
pharmafile | November 14, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Â
WellSpring Pharmaceutical Corp has been acquired by private equity group Ancor Capital Partners in a deal which looks set to inject new growth into the company’s contract manufacturing operations.
Headquartered in Florida, WellSpring provides contract manufacturing services from a facility in Ontario, Canada, and also develops and markets its own prescription and over-the-counter medicines.
Ancor partnered with fellow investment groups Sentinel Capital and Yukon Capital in taking over WellSpring, although the financial basis of the transaction has not been disclosed. Ancor specialises in acquiring companies with earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes (EBITDA) of between $5 million and $15 million.
Bonnie Feeney, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said the deal with Ancor “allows us to continue to utilise our state of the art manufacturing facility in Canada through a new phase of growth”. The facility specialises in clinical- and commercial-scale production, packaging and quality services, with a focus on solid-dosage forms, liquids and topical drugs.
Feeney, along with chief executive Robert Vukovich and chief financial officer Wendy Shusko, have re-invested in the business and will remain with the company under its new owners.
Ancor’s managing partner Randall Keene will serve as CEO of the group, while Vukovich joins the board of directors. Feeney and Shusko retain their current roles.
WellSpring becomes the fifteenth healthcare-focused company to be acquired by Ancor, with past purchases notably including Avail Medical Products, a contract manufacturer of medical devices. Ancor sold Avail to Flextronics International in 2008.
“We built Avail Medical into the world’s largest contact manufacturer of sterile medical products from a small medical and industrial manufacturer when we bought the original platform company in 1995”, said Timothy McKibben, co- founder of Ancor Capital.
“We see the same type of opportunity to replicate our best-in-class policies and procedures in WellSpring to become a premier player in its product and services”.
Phil Taylor
