Strides acquires US capsule facility, set to invest further $10m
Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer, Strides Pharma announced it has reached an asset purchase agreement with Micelle BioPharma, to acquire the latter’s facility in Riviera Beach, Florida, US, for $500,000 (€451.000).
Following the acquisition, with which Strides increases the number of its global formulation sites to eight, the company will proceed with a $10m investment to “build incremental capabilities and add additional dosage formats.”
According to the company, the facility is ‘one of the very few’ facilities in the US with a soft gel capsule (SGC) manufacturing suite for formulations with containment needs. This means that the plant has been designed to prevent contamination and cross-contamination between the products.
Furthermore, the Florida site is the only integrated manufacturing and packaging SGC facility in the country approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), while it has undergone ‘several’ successful inspections and has no ‘outstanding’ FDA observations to address, Strides stated.
The facility is expected to boost Strides’ existing capacity in SGC manufacturing, which the company stated is an important pivot in its growth.
Strides markets 10 drug products in SGC formulation in several markets including the US, as well as 15 products for which it anticipates US FDA approval.
The news about the acquisition arrived less than two months after Strides’ facility in Puducherry, India, which manufactures drug products in SGC, amongst other formulations, received an FDA warning leading to deferrals for 10 pending ANDA approvals.
