Supplier News: Sartorius, MilliporeSigma, Porton & More
The latest from CDMOs, CMOs, and suppliers featuring Sartorius, MilliporeSigma, Porton, West Pharmaceutical Services, CoreRx, Aptar Pharma, Datwyler, UPS Healthcare, Albumedix, Bomi, Latch Medical, and Pharmaxis. Highlights below.
Biologics Manufacturing
* Sartorius To Acquire Albumin Maker Albumedix for $508 M
* MilliporeSigma Launches Viral Vector Mfg Platform
Formulation Development/Drug Product Manufacturing
* Porton Investing $20 M for New Crystallization & Drug-Product Mfg Facility
* CoreRx Names Chief Strategy Officer
Packaging
* West Takes Minority Stake in Drug-Delivery Company Latch Medical
* Aptar Pharma Acquires Pharmaxis’ License for Dry-Powder Inhaler
* Datwyler Expanding Elastomer Component Mfg
General
* UPS To Acquire Healthcare Logistics Providers Bomi
Biologics Manufacturing
Sartorius To Acquire Albumin Maker Albumedix for $508 M
Sartorius, a provider of products and services for the life-sciences, including bioprocessing, has agreed to acquire Albumedix, a Nottingham, UK-based company providing recombinant human albumin products and technologies, for approximately £415 million ($508 million).
Recombinant human albumin is a component in the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, cell therapies, viral therapies, and vaccines. It is used in various applications, for example, as an additive to cell-culture media and for the stabilization of vaccines and viral therapies. Albumedix has more than 100 employees and is expected to generate revenue of approximately £33 million ($40 million) in 2022.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close before the end of the third quarter of 2022. Upon closing, Albumedix will become part of Sartorius Bioprocess Solutions Division, and Albumedix’s 72,000-square-foot site in Nottingham will be established as a center of excellence for innovation and GMP-compliant production of critical raw materials.
Source: Sartorius
MilliporeSigma Launches Viral Vector Mfg Platform
MilliporeSigma, the life-science business of Merck KGaA, has launched a viral vector manufacturing platform for adeno-associated viruses (AAV) as part of its VirusExpress platforms.
The VirusExpress platforms offer upstream workflow for the production of AAV and lentivirus. In addition to accelerating process development, the suspension culture format allows for larger batch yields to enable more patient doses and uses chemically defined cell-culture media to eliminate issues related to animal- and human-derived materials.
Source: MilliporeSigma
Formulation Development/Drug Product Manufacturing
Porton Investing $20 M for New Crystallization & Drug-Product Mfg Facility
Porton, a Suzhou, China-based CDMO, is investing $20 million for a new crystallization and drug-product facility in Cranbury, New Jersey.
The facility, over 40,000 square feet of space, will be cGMP-capable for drug-product supplies and will have six cGMP suites, expanded crystallization R&D and reaction engineering laboratories, offices, and supporting utilities. It will have about 70 drug-services and drug-product scientists in various areas such as salt selection, polymorph screening, crystallization process development, particle-size engineering, pre-formulation development, preparation of Phase I/II drug-product supplies, and drug-substance and drug-product co-processing.
The new facility is projected to open in the fourth quarter of 2022. It is located in close to proximity to the facility of J Star Research, a Portun company, focusing on small-molecule drug-substance and drug-product development.
Source: J Star Research
CoreRx Names Chief Strategy Officer
CoreRx, a CDMO of drug products, has named Dan Dobry, formerly holding executive roles with Lonza and Capsugel, as Chief Strategy Officer and a member of CoreRx’s Executive Leadership Team. He will report to CoreRx’s CEO, Ajay Damani, and will oversee CoreRx’s strategy and corporate development functions.
Previously, Dobry held leadership roles in commercial development at Lonza, strategic alliance management at Capsugel, and was Vice President of Engineering for Bend Research, which was acquired by Capsugel in 2013; Lonza acquired Capsugel in 2017. Early in his career, he contributed to process and formulation development, particle engineering, and materials science innovations, resulting in more than 15 patents. Overall, he has 25 years of industry experience as a CDMO business leader and drug-delivery innovator.
Source: CoreRx
Packaging
West Takes Minority Stake in Drug-Delivery Company Latch Medical
West Pharmaceutical Services, a provider of products and services for injectable drug administration, has taken a minority ownership interest in Latch Medical, a Dublin, Ireland-based provider of vaccine and biologics delivery technology.
Latch Medical’s Pharma Latch technology provides two delivery-device platforms that allow for intradermal delivery of vaccines and biologics by using either hollow or coated microneedles to deliver and disperse vaccine and biologics payloads.
Latch Medical was spun out of the University College Dublin in 2019. West joins Latch Medical’s existing investors Atlantic Bridge and Enterprise Ireland.
Source: West Pharmaceutical Services
Aptar Pharma Acquires Pharmaxis’ License for Dry-Powder Inhaler
Aptar Pharma, a provider of consumer dispensing, active packaging, and drug-delivery products and services, has acquired the worldwide rights to Pharmaxis’ Orbital inhaler, a device designed to deliver high payload dry powder to the lungs. Pharmaxis is an Australian clinical-stage drug development company, and the inhaler allows powder payloads of up to 400 mg to be inhaled in divided doses without the need to reload.
Source: Aptar Pharma
Datwyler Expanding Elastomer Component Mfg
Datwyler, an Altdorf, Switzerland-headquartered manufacturer of elastomer components for pharmaceutical packaging, is expanding production capacity at its site in Pune, India. The company plans to start up the new plant in the third quarter 2022, which would double capacity at the site.
Source: Datwyler
General
UPS To Acquire Healthcare Logistics Providers Bomi
UPS has agreed to acquire Bomi Group, a multinational healthcare logistics provider. The acquisition will add temperature-controlled facilities in 14 countries and nearly 3,000 Bomi employees to the UPS Healthcare network in Europe and Latin America. It will also add more than 350 temperature-controlled vehicles and four million square feet to UPS Healthcare’s global footprint.
Since 2020, UPS Healthcare has doubled its global footprint. Recent expansions include newly constructed and soon-to-be-opened healthcare logistics facilities in Germany and Australia and expanded campuses in Hungary and the Netherlands.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the year (2022), subject to customary regulatory review and approval.
Separately, Marken, a provider of clinical trial material supply logistics and supply-chain services and a part of UPS Healthcare, has agreed to acquire Cedra Express, an Auckland, New Zealand-based transportation and logistics provider serving the life science and pharmaceutical segment.
The acquisition will expand Marken’s presence as a healthcare logistics provider in the region. The medical courier business of Cedra Express will become Marken New Zealand.
Source: UPS (Bomi Group Acquisition), Bomi Group, and UPS (Marken acquires Cedra Express)
