Aspen buys Merck facility and products in $1 billion deal
pharmafile | July 1, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | MSD, Merck, Oss, aspen
Africa’s largest drugmaker Aspen Pharmacare has agreed to buy a manufacturing facility owned by Merck & Co, plus a portfolio of pharmaceutical products, in a deal valued at around $1 billion.
The deal is the latest in a series of transactions at Aspen as it tries to elevate itself from a regional to a global player in the pharma market, and had been announced in principle earlier this year.
The company’s chief executive Stephen Saad said it would “provide support to [Aspen’s] growing global presence with a differentiated pipeline.”
Just last week Aspen said it was in talks with GlaxoSmithKline to buy rights to Arixtra (fondaparinux sodium) and Fraxiparine (nadroparin) along with a sterile production facility in France. GSK holds a 19% stake in the African company.
Under the terms of the deal Aspen takes over an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) facility in Oss, the Netherlands, operated by MSD, along with a satellite facility and sales office in the US.
The South Africa-based company will also buy a portfolio of 11 branded finished dosage form drugs, some of which are based on APIs made at Oss.
They include hormone replacement therapies, an anticoagulant and steroid products, drugs to treat hyperthyroidism, oral contraceptives and a vitamin B product. Collectively the brand brought in $248 million last year, with more than half their turnover in Aspen’s target growth markets of Latin America, Asia Pacific and Europe.
Meanwhile, the API facility at Oss makes a range of APIs with sales of around €284 million ($370m) last year, including heparin, an ingredient used in the manufacture of GSK’s Fraxiparine product. MSD has agreed a 10-year supply contract under which it will continue to source APIs from the Dutch facility.
Aspen has been pursuing a policy of growth by acquisition to meet its expansion objectives, buying GSK’s Australian generics unit last year for $270 million, and Australian group Sigma’s pharma business in 2009 for around $800 million. Both those deals gave Aspen a springboard into the Asian market. The South African firm also bought a GSK manufacturing facility in Bad Oldesloe, Germany, in 2009 to help grow its European operations.
Aspen is Africa’s biggest drugmaker with 6,000 employees and sales of around €1.5 billion last year, with 70% of sales split almost equally between South Africa and Asia. Asia is expected to become the biggest market for the firm by the end of this year.
Phil Taylor
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