US-based Arlington Capital Partners backed a management buyout of Micron last week, describing the firm as an ideal platform investment in a compelling growth industry – specifically - the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) engineering sector.
Arlington partner Matt Altman expanded on this, telling in-pharmatechnologist.com the investment group will support Micron as it enhances and expands its global particle size engineering and analytical service offerings.
“Micron is a premier platform in a compelling industry and we look forward to working closely with management to grow the business aggressively both organically and through acquisition,” Altman said, reiterating that “particle engineering and analytical services, complementary technologies and offerings, and acquisitions.”
Demand
He did not name any potential acquisitions or say whether or not Arlington has an exit strategy for Micron - as it did for its recent divestiture US contract manufacturing organisation (CMO), Cambridge Major Labs, which it sold to American Capital in January.
Instead Altman stressed that: “Arlington has a history of successful investments in the pharmaceutical services arena and we continue to pursue additional service companies in the research and development, clinical and commercial segments of the pharmaceutical industry.”
Demand for drug particle engineering is increase as drug developers try to create medicines that can be delivered and manufactured more effectively and recognition of this demand is driving technical innovation and business decisions.
For example, in September, Portugal-based contractor Hovione added particle engineering capabilities to its offering by investing in crystal design, size reduction and amorphous solid dispersion development technologies.
A few months later Hovione and Solvias joined forces on particle engineering in a bid to expand their respective bioavailability enhancement offerings and Merck Millipore announced plans for a new particle lab citing pharmaceutical industry demand. That same month Italian firm Micromacinazione bought the micronization arm of Switzerland’s Neo-Micro AG citing the latter’s capabilities in API milling and micronization as the driver for the deal.
This acquisition followed just a few months after Micromacinazione itself was bought by Swiss private equity firm Cross, which also cited the demand for particle engineering as a driver.