Mitsubishi Tanabe exits API business
pharmafile | May 22, 2012 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â API, Mitsubishi, Phil Taylor, TanabeÂ
Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma has said it will withdraw from the fine chemical business, including active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) supply, and transfer all operations to fellow Japanese company API Corporation.
Non-pharma fine chemicals, which concentrate mainly on food ingredients, will be handed over to Mitsui Sugar subsidiary Taisho Technos. Both transfers are scheduled to complete by July 1.
API Corp is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Chemical and according to a press statement is ‘aggressively’ developing its business. The company said that the addition of Mitsubishi Tanabe’s pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing and sales operations would enable it to achieve “impressive levels of growth in the future”.
Around 10 years ago, Mitsubishi Chemical and Mitsubishi Pharma transferred part of their API businesses into a company called Yoshitomi Fine Chemical which went on to be renamed API Corp, and the latest deal completes the positioning of the latter firm as the primary ingredient supplier in the Mitsubishi group.
At the time, the companies said that the deal made sense because it added API capabilities to Yoshitomi’s strength in pharmaceutical intermediates and process R&D. API Corp reported sales of 29 billion yen ($364 million) in the year ended March 31, 2011, but as yet the company has not commented on the financial implications of adding Mitsubishi Tanabe’s fine chemical operations.
Mitsubishi Tanabe said in its fiscal 2011 results statement that a strong performance in fine chemicals helped its ‘other pharmaceutical’ operations to post a 54% increase in sales to 18.3 billion yen ($230 million). The category excludes its prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals businesses but includes other sources of revenues such as licensing and royalties.
Mitsubishi Tanabe also said that the divestment will help it meet its aim of transforming itself into a pure-play pharmaceutical company focusing on novel drugs “that respond to unmet medical needs”.
Phil Taylor
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