Gadea's steroid intermediates biz means AMRI not reliant on Asian suppliers say execs

19-Jul-2015 - Last updated on 20-Jul-2015 at 12:56 GMT

Gadea API facility in Spain

AMRI has bought Spanish contractor Gadea Pharmaceutical Group for $174m (€160m) to add muscle to its steroid API business and sign up more customers outside the US.

The deal includes Gadea’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) business called Crystal Pharma, its finished dosage manufacturing unit Gadea Biopharma and a steroid precursor production division named Bioraw.

Gedea claims to have a 400-strong customer base in 70 countries, which generated revenue of $83m last year. According to AMRI the Spanish firm earns 80% of its revenue in markets outside the US.

AMRI CEO William Marth said Gadea brings “a unique blend of expertise in complex APIs and new customer relationships, primarily in Europe and other non-US markets that will augment our [AMRI’s] existing capabilities and services.”

AMRI entered the steroid API sector last year with the acquisition of contractor Cedarberg Hauser. According to Marth the acquisition of Gadea gives the US firm a comprehensive offering in a market, which he said has high barriers to entry.

“They [Gadea] really add depth and breadth to our steroidal offering. What we have a Cedarberg is actually quite limited, so this gives us a full scale operation in steroids” he said.

Intermediate source

Marth also cited the ‘backwards’ integration of Gadea’s API business with the Bioraw intermediates unit as a real competitive advantage, explaining that only a limited number of players have such capabilities.

This point was reiterated by George Sovokos who said that having this backward integration secures the firm’s supply chain.

“Today most of the intermediates are coming from Asia, out of China and in some cases there have been shortages. There have been price fluctuations based on weather, so having that capability in-house and not at the whim of companies and markets that are less controlled than ours is important.”

Gadea’s capabilities in sterile fill finish were also cited by Marth, which he said augment AMRI’s existing parenteral business and expand the division into new areas, such as opthalmics and parenteral suspension dosage forms.

Acquisition

Gadea is one of a number of API firms AMRI has acquired in recent years and it may not be the last according to Marth.

He told investors during the AMRI conference call that: “Specific to our API business, we will look to expand organically by expanding our chemical development work to become a good second source for brand APIs and expand our portfolio of generic APIs.”

However, Marth added that AMRI would buy pipelines of APIs in targeted areas, but did not provide any more details.