This week, Indian contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Piramal Enterprises Limited announced it is set to buy Michigan-based manufacturer Ash Stevens for $42.5m (€37.5m) plus an additional earn-out consideration of up to $10m.
The deal will see Piramal add a 60,000 sq. ft. high potency active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPI) facility to its manufacturing footprint, which - according to CEO Vivek Sharma - bolsters the firm’s antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) services.
“This acquisition is synergistic with our ADC business,” Sharma told Biopharma-Reporter.com.
“Piramal, through the Ash Stevens acquisition, can now manufacture the high potency API at Ash Stevens, do the conjugation at Grangemouth, and then carry out the fill finish in Lexington, Kentucky.”
The Grangemouth, UK site boasts two commercial grade ADC suites and has seen constant investment since it began offering conjugation services in 2004.
There has been a surge of interest in ADCs over the past few years, and along with Piramal, WuXi, Althea, Novasep, Catalent, Lonza, and ADC Bio are just some of the CDMOs which have invested in technologies and capabilities.
US presence
The addition of Ash Stevens will also bolster Piramel’s North American presence, with the Michigan site adding to the Kentucky fill/finish plant - picked-up when Piramal bought Coldstream Laboratories for $30m in January 2015 – and a GMP manufacturing for complex APIs located in Torcan, Canada.
“North America is the largest life sciences market. Hence the demand for both API and HPAPI’s are high,” Sharma said.
“A mixture of virtual to mid-size life science firms, and several large pharma firms working in oncology – a disease area where most of the HPAPIs are used- are the primary drivers.”