Eden to expand facility

Eden Biodesign is to invest $100m in expanding its Liverpool, UK, manufacturing facility. The company plans to recruit 35 additional staff to fulfil Watson’s five-year contract to develop a Follicle Stimulating Hormone.
Liverpool Daily Post

Good H1 for Johnson Matthey

Sales for Johnson Matthey's fine chemicals division rose 8% to £122m in H1 and for its APIs manufacturing businesses, Macfarlan Smith and Pharmaceutical Materials and Services, sales rose 5% to £88m. The company said that growth at Macfarlan Smith was led by sales of bulk opiates and other controlled APIs and Pharmaceutical Materials and Services' strong performance was mainly due to continued good growth in sales of specialist opiates, amphetamines and platinum anticancer APIs.
Earlier in November, Johnson Matthey acquired a dedicated APIs manufacturing facility in Conshohocken, PA, together with some ongoing businesses. The company said the facility will provide additional capacity and greater flexibility to continue to grow its North American controlled substances business.
Johnson Matthey

Maxygen is to distribute its stake in Codexis to its shareholders

Forbes

Aurelius complete KemFine acquisition

Aurelius has completed its acquisition of KemFine. Aurelius plans to rename the Grangemouth, UK, based operation and expand its product line through acquisitions.
Herald Scotland

WR Grace has completed its acquisition of Synthetech

WR Grace

Lonza partners with California Peptide Research

Lonza has partnered with California Peptide Research to provide small scale synthesis of peptides to the North American market, complementing its existing capabilities across Europe and in Asia. The alliance will provide customers with services from research through commercial supply and enable a seamless transition of projects between CPRI's small-scale facility and Lonza's cGMP facilities.
GEN

Roche to sell Colorado facility

As part of a company-wide programee of job cuts and plant closures, Roche plans to sell its Roche Colorado plant in Boulder. Roche acquired the site 16 years ago as part of its acquisition of Syntex. Roche Colorado is focussed on the production of peptides and employs 280 workers. John Tayer, a Roche Colorado spokesman, said "our expectation is that we will continue to build on our strong record of achievement in the peptide arena both in technical development and manufacturing, and whoever buys us would have a long-term relationship with Roche".
Boulder County Business Report

Angel shares rise

Shares in Angel Biotechnology rose 80% today following the announcement that ReNeuron had commenced its Phase I clinical trial for disabled stroke patients using neural stem cells. Angel manufactures the stem cells for ReNeuron.

InvestEgate

Lonza and Dalton collaborate

Lonza has partnered with Dalton Pharma Services to provide customers, primarily in North America, with early phase chemistry and kg-lab manufacturing services for small molecules.
Lonza

Alpha Biologics has opened its new process development laboratories in Cambridge, UK

Alpha Biologics

Lonza will receive $18m in US defence funding to develop and commercialise its PermaDerm skin substitute

Business Week

Jubilant Life Sciences' profit rose by 41% to $18.5m in its Q2 ended 30 September

Business Standard

Gallus Biopharmaceuticals plans to buy Johnson & Johnson's St. Louis biologics manufacturing facility

St Louis Business Journal

Genmab expects delay in the sale of its Minnesota manufacturing facility

Reuters
Original story: FINE

Mixed results for AMRI

AMRI reported mixed results from its contract manufacturing businesses in Q3 2010. The small scale manufacturing contract revenue decreased 6% to $9.1m, while large scale manufacturing contract revenue increased 20% to $21.9m. Thomas D'Ambra, AMRI's chairman, president and CEO said “results this quarter reflect the continued shift in customer demand for services in Asia and Europe, as evidenced by the on-going growth of our international locations". He also said it would take longer than expected to realise the synergies from AMRI's two recent acquisitions in Wales, UK and Burlington, MA. have shown signs that it will take a few months longer to demonstrate the synergies to our business than we first had anticipated. He added that AMRI was using internal and external resources to address concerns raised in an FDA Warning Letter for its Burlington sterile fill and finish business and hopes to have resolved the matter in H1 2011.
AMRI

Eden Biodesign will provide contract vaccine and gene therapy manufacturing services using Crucell's proprietary PER.C6 cell-line technology

InvestEgate

Angel to add capacity

Angel Biotechnology is planning to add additional GMP capacity in order to meet the demand of new orders and support the company's growth plans. Angel is in advanced discussions to take over a mothballed GMP-standard manufacturing facility, which when fully commissioned would have the potential to increase its GMP manufacturing capacity further by approximately five-fold. The company is also exploring a number of other options, but its preferred choice would be the mothballed facility, which can be brought on line in phases and in a shorter time frame than a new build.
InvestEgate

Aesica is planning to grow its animal health API manufacturing business, particularly in the UK and US markets

NE Business

Dottikon expects loss

Dottikon expects to report considerably lower net sales and a net loss for its H1 2010/11, ended 30 September. The company said this was caused by several discontinued and delayed projects in the late development phase and ongoing currency pressure.
Dottikon

Aesica is looking to expand into Japan

The Northern Echo

Avantor acquires RFCL

Avantor Performance Materials (formerly Mallinckrodt Baker) is to acquire RFCL (formerly Ranbaxy Fine Chemical Ltd) from ICICI Venture. Reports suggest that ICICI has sold around 90% of its holding in a deal worth $101-113m. ICICI Venture had bought RFCL for only $22m. In 2008, ICICI Venture was planning to acquire Mallinckrodt Baker but did not agree a price. ICICI has been seeking a buyer since the summer.
Economic Times
SiFy

Cambrex sales fall

Sales at Cambrex fell 15% to $49.4m in Q3. The company said the fall was primarily due to the timing of orders for certain products, the effects of a supply chain disruption at a customer's facility, a negotiated contract extension for certain drug delivery products resulting in lower volumes and pricing, and lower custom development and controlled substances shipments. However, the company said it had higher sales volume of generic APIs.
Cambrex

The US Patent and Trademark’s Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has reconfirmed Hovione's patent claims to a method of making flumethasone

Hovione

Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals reported a 17.9% increase in profit in Q2, but sales fell 2% to $48m

Business Standard

Cambrex has acquired a 51% stake in Hyderabad, India-based Zenara Pharma for $20m and will acquire the remainder in 2016

Street Insider

Jacobs to provide engineering for Porton facility

Jacobs Engineering will provide detailed engineering services for a new multi-purpose GMP manufacturing facility at Chongqing Changshou Chemical Industrial Park, Chongqing, China, for Porton Fine Chemicals.
Jacobs Engineering

Pfenex has launched a Reagent Proteins division to supply lab-grade proteins

Xconomy

GAO unhappy with FDA inspections

The US General Accountability Office has reported that the FDA failed to implement earlier recommendations that would close the gap between the agency’s approach to inspecting domestic and foreign drug manufacturing facilities. Despite a budget increase from $12m in 2008 to $41m in 2009, the agency only inspected 11% of foreign facilities and 42% of US facilities.
Pharmalot

DSM pharma results negative

DSM reported that despite seeing a 4% rise in sales to €168m in Q3, its operating profit was -€6m, below that from the same period in 2009. The company said this was the result of no change in the challenging business dynamics that the entire pharmaceutical industry is facing.
DSM

Codexis acquires rights to IP

Codexis has acquired the MolecularBreeding technology portfolio from its Maxygen for $20m in cash. Codexis will no longer have to make royalty payments to Maxygen, which spun out Codexis in 2002. Codexis will now be able to apply the technology in new markets, subject to previously agreements signed by Maxygen.
Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal