Imtech signs contracts worth 40m EUROs with Belgian drug sector
Imtech says it has received orders worth around €40m ($64m) from
the Belgian operations of firms such as Janssen Pharmaceutica,
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Schering Plough.
Imtech's share price on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange increased some 1.08 per cent to €14.93 on the day the news was announced, but subsequently fell back slightly to close at €14.59. The largest of the new deals relates to the construction of Janssen's chemical development pilot plant in the northern city of Geel. Jannsen, a subsidiary of global healthcare major Johnson & Johnson, is investing around €130m in the facility, which is intended to reduce the time the firm takes to develop new medicines. Imtech has also been contracted as a technology partner by Schering Plough's oral solid dosage (OSD) operation. Specifically, the Dutch firm will work to improve logistics and raw material distribution at the US major's OSD plant in Heist-op-den-Berg in Antwerp. According to data released by Schering-Plough the facility currently ships more than 30,000 orders a year to over 500 destinations worldwide. Imtech says that it has been actively strengthening its position in the Belgian pharmaceutical services market for the last few years. Its offering includes technical competencies in automated industrial processes, electrical engineering, piping as well as advanced heating, ventilation and air conditioning development capabilities. Further to its activities in Belgium, Imtech has been increasing its presence in the European pharmaceutical sector as a whole. The firm now has considerable operations serving the industry in Germany and Ireland, as well as its home base in the Netherlands. Additionally, Imtech has recently entered the potentially very lucrative Spanish and eastern European drug markets through a series of joint venture partnerships that it established early in 2008. The firm explained that it is working very closely with Ireland's Suir Engineering in an effort to provide technical services to biotechnology, biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical companies operating in the region. GSK Biologics and Pfizer Imtech also announced that it is to collaborate with UK drug major GSK at its biologics facility in Saint-Amand-les-Eaux in France and its Belgian operation in Wavre Nord. The company is also scheduled to collaborate on a smaller scale project with global drug giant Pfizer at its plant in Puurs, also in Belgium.
