The acquisition of the 18,000-square-meter facility, which will expand WIL’s biologics research capabilities, “leverages our existing capabilities” in the US and Netherlands, David Spaight, WIL’s chairman and CEO, said.
"While we have no plans to permanently transfer current WIL employees to Lyon, our scientific staff from the United States and the Netherlands will participate in short-term assignments to share and leverage our newly acquired expertise," Spaight told us.
The acquisition of the site will not cause any of the site’s 280 employees to lose their positions and long-time managing director of the facility, Stéphane Bulle, will still lead the site and keep his senior leadership team. All of Ricerca’s current client studies will be conducted by WIL, though none of WIL’s projects will move to the Lyon site or vice versa.
In addition to its Netherlands operations, WIL also has US research facilities located in Ashland, Ohio; Skokie, Illinois; and Hillsborough, North Carolina. But WIL also may look into Asia in the near future.
"Asia, specifically China, has been on our radar screen the past few years for potential partnerships and/or acquisitions," Spaight said. "We’ll be more aggressive on this front when the time is right."
And for Ricerca, it seems the company was looking to sell the site to expand further in the US.
Dr. Michael Placke, Ricerca’s president, said, “This divestiture will fund significant capital investment into our Concord, Ohio business allowing us to expand and re-invigorate our integrated drug development services in chemical development, drug substance production, and drug safety and metabolism.”