DCAT Week ’17 Announcement Forum: Olon Highlights Integration of Infa
Giorgio Bertolini |
Giorgio Bertolini, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, Chemistry. Olon S.p.A, outlined the integration of the Infa Group, which Olon acquired in 2016 and successfully integrated into the company in January 2017. Olon is a manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and a subsidiary of the Milan, Italy-based P&R Group, a chemical/pharmaceutical company, and Infa is an API and fine chemicals manufacturer headquartered in Milan, Italy.
Bertolini explained that the combined company has more than 1,200 people, including more than 100 in research and development. Olon is headquartered in Rodano, Italy, and has three branch offices: Hamburg, Germany; Parsippany, New Jersey, and Shanghai, China.
On a production basis, the combined company has 5,340 cubic meters of overall reactor capacity. It has eight European production sites (Rodano, Settimo Torinese, Garbagnate Milanese, Mulazzano, Dorno, Segrate, and Lodi in Italy and one site in Murcia, Spain), all regularly inspected by the US Food and Drug Administration and other designated national health authorities. The combined company’s production network includes six cGMP pilot plants (synthetic and semisynthetic chemistry), three cGMP kilolabs with high containment, one cGMP fermentation pilot plant, and one cGMP recovery pilot plant.
On a product basis, the combined company produces 33 chemical Intermediates under contact manufacturing agreements and approximately 200 APIs (31 under contact manufacturing agreements). It is also the holder of approximately 130 active drug master files and 50 granted certificates of suitability.
Bertolini explained that the acquisition of Infa by Olon further broadens Olon’s product portfolio in fermented and semi-synthetic APIs, high-potency APIs (including cytotoxic compounds), controlled substances, retinoids, antivirals, biologics, and recombinant peptides.
The acquisition also strengthens its services to CDMO customers from the early clinical phases up to commercial manufacturing as well as its offerings in specialized technologies, such as cryogenic reactions, photochemical conversions, hydride chemistry, organometallic reactions, cyanation, bromuration, and fermentation technologies (e.g., strain improvement, natural selection, genetic engineering, and recombinant DNA technology with E.coli and yeasts strains).