Actavis cuts down Forest as $28bn acquisition closes
The decision to close the Earth City facilities came after a review of Actavis’ global manufacturing capacities and capabilities, as part of the acquisition of Forest announced in February, the company said.
“Teams from both companies looked at all of the assets of the combined organization, in order to make the best decisions possible about how to structure the new company to be an efficient and nimble competitor in the complex and rapidly changing global pharmaceutical environment,” Actavis said in a statement, adding operations at the site will end by the end of June 2015.
The company did not respond to requests for further information from this publication but according to a Form 10-K filed by Forest with the SEC in May, the two facilities in St. Louis total over 500,000ft and are primarily tasked for administrative processes.
However, warehousing and distribution is also carried out at the site and activities will be transferred to Actavis’ distribution centre in Gurnee, Illinois by the end of the year.
A total of 190 jobs will be affected in distribution/logistics, packaging, resource planning, quality, purchasing roles, as well as IT, R&D and sales.
Even before the Forest acquisition, Actavis had been looking to trim its network announcing last November the closure of a plant in North Carolina, and selling its infrastructure in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands to Aurobindo for €30m in January.
The Forest acquisition added a further 15 faciliites to Actavis’ operations – nine in US, one in Canada and five in Europe – to its network as, well as take on the lease of 14 facilities worldwide.
Actavis also announced last week Forest was acquiring North Carolina-based Furiex Pharmaceuticals – the compound partnering spinoff of contract research organisation PPD – for $1.1bn.
