Patheon has bought hard-to-make API specialist Irix Pharmaceuticals
The deal – financial details of which have not been disclosed – will add Irix's small-scale manufacturing facility in Florence, South Carolina and large scale production site in neighbouring Greenville to Patheon’s offering.
The agreement is expected to complete in 60 days, pending approval by industry regulators.
Irix’s focus is the production of difficult to make active pharmaceutical ingredients, including high potency ingredients and controlled substances.
Patheon is a business unit of DPx Holdings BV, which is the contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) that formed in 2014 through the merger of the previous entity Patheon and Royal DSM's pharmaceutical products business.
Lukas Utiger, president, DPx Fine Chemicals said the deal allows Patheon to "secure important capabilities" adding that the Irix operations complement the firm's existing capabilities in Europe.
The acqusition is in keeping with DPx comments about the market last year, when it said the CMO industry with ripe for consolidation citing customer demand for single suppliers as the driver.
At the time, president of pharma development services Mike Lehmann told us the firm was looking to grow through acqusition in a couple of key areas.
