Clariant's divested pharma business reborn as Archimica

Published: 3-Jul-2006

Clariant completes sale of Pharmaceutical Fine Chemicals unit to TowerBrook Capital Partners


After fulfilment of local transfer requirements and approval of all relevant authorities, Clariant has completed the sale of its Pharmaceutical Fine Chemicals unit to TowerBrook Capital Partners for CHF 110m (euro70m). The business will now operate under the new name of Archimica.

Archimica comprises virtually all assets and personnel that had previously supported commercial activities for the manufacture of high-tech building blocks, regulatory starting materials, cGMP intermediates and active ingredients (APIs) for the pharmaceutical industry.

It will be headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany with manufacturing and technology development sites in the US, the UK, Germany, France and Italy. Archimica begins operations with sales in excess of $250m and over 800 employees worldwide.

Norbert Dieterich, ceo of the new business, said: "Our predecessor company, Archimica, was one of the world's premiere manufacturers of APIs dating back to the early 1960s. This tradition of pharmaceutical manufacturing belongs to all of our sites where our facilities and many of our people once were part of pharmaceutical companies.'

The development and commercialisation of generic APIs, which currently accounts for some 30 % of sales, will continue in the new organisation. "As a business, we will be faster to react to the needs of this market and 100% of our resources will go into making us a better partner for the pharmaceutical companies commercialising new products and developing cost effective sourcing options for their existing portfolios,' added Dieterich.

Each of the manufacturing and r&d sites previously serving the business will continue to do so. These include Pharmaceutical Centres of Excellence in Springfield, Missouri, USA (in combination with a Puerto Rico facility) and Origgio, Isso, Italy that currently form the core of the business" FDA/cGMP manufacturing capability. They also include sites in Bon Encontre, Tonneins, France that conduct the business" bulk sterile API manufacturing and Sandycroft, UK where high intensity chemistry as well as the manufacture of APIs is practiced.

The Frankfurt, Germany site is the business" global Pharmaceutical Services Technology Centre, focusing on expanding the use of leading edge chemical and biological technologies and in the development of new processes. These locations are complemented by four Molecules Synthesis Centres, which provide rapid, small-scale manufacture of clinical trial quantities of molecules.

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