Univar fills EU phosphate gap

The partnership was announced last week at the CPhI trade show, and represents yet another move in Univar's programme of expansion for its pharmaceutical ingredients business. The deal came as a "natural coming together​" for the two companies, Univar's European director of its pharma ingredients division, Jeremy Drummond, told in-PharmaTechnologist.com, following on from the long standing relationship the two firms have enjoyed over in the US. Univar is Innophos' top customer thanks to the business it has been doing over in the States, and following the exit of chemicals firm Rhodia from the phosphate market and the closure of a UK plant, the time seemed ripe for Univar and Innophos to step and fill the gap in the European calcium phosphate market. Brands such as Innophos' A-TAB, Di-TAB and Calcipharm A are well established supplements and excipients in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries, and Univar hopes to act as the new supplier of these products across the EU. "There have been a number of changes in the calcium phosphate market​," said Drummond. "This has left many of our customers needing to find a high quality supply…so we have extended our relationship with Innphos into the European space." ​ The EU customers will be served with products manufactured at Innophos' Chicago Heights, Illinois plant in the US, the largest single manufacturing facility for specialty calcium phosphate products in the world. The plant itself is a multi-product facility, and according to Drummond has more than enough existing capacity to cover that previously provided by the now closed UK plant. Innophos previously served the European market through Rhodia, but the company's presence was somewhat limited thanks to the presence of the Rhodia-managed UK plant. Univar has now taken over the distribution relationship, further extending the range of products the company offers to its European customers. The Dutch firm has been actively expanding of late, with a swathe of investments and acquisitions to strengthen its position in the market. In February the company acquired the enzymes distribution business of Czech firm Ekozym, but this was nothing compared to the firm's March announcement that it was to snap up Chemcentral, the fourth largest chemicals distributor in the US. Univar bought up the company for $600m (€425m), and in the process positioned itself as the leading distributor in the US. In addition to these acquisitions, the company has also been investing and upgrading various other facilities across Europe over the last six months. New distribution centres in Ireland and Spain have been established, as well as a new collaboration with Liquid Bulk Chemicals (LBC) of the Netherlands to raise capacity for repackaging bulk liquid-based excipients to good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards in Rotterdam. "The pharma business is continuing to expand in Europe even though there are serious competitive threats from other parts of the world,"​ said Drummond. "One of the things that that has impacted the pharmaceutical industry particularly is the increasing regulation…every year there's another step. We've invested…to ensure we've got the quality that's required by our pharmaceutical customers so they can be absolutely sure of the security and quality of the product." ​ Although the pharmaceutical unit of Univar was only branded as a distinct division of the company relatively recently, the unit continues to grow year on year and has plans for ongoing investment. The acquisition of Chemcentral is likely to prove a significant boost to the firm's expansion plants, and according to Drummond will also have a very positive impact on the company's finances, improving on the $6.6bn sales of 2006.