Penwest completes sale of excipient business
Penwest Pharmaceuticals has completed the sale of its excipient business to subsidiaries and affiliates of privately held Josef Rettenmaier Holding.
On November 4, 2002, Penwest signed a definitive agreement to sell substantially all of the assets and properties that comprise its excipient business to Rettenmaier for $39.5m (Euro 36.7) in cash and a promissory note of $2.25m (Euro 2.09m). Completion of the transaction today follows approval by Penwest shareholders.
Tod R Hamachek, chairman and ceo of Penwest, said: 'With this sale completed, we look forward to focusing all of our energies and resources on expanding the Company's drug delivery pipeline, both through developing pharmaceutical products internally, as well as with third-party collaborators.
'With the recent FDA acceptance for filing of the NDA for oxymorphone ER, which we jointly developed with Endo Pharmaceuticals, as well as several other drug solutions currently under development, our expanding development pipeline demonstrates the flexibility and broad applicability of Penwest's technology platform and our growing commitment to being a leader in the development of pharmaceutical products based on innovative drug delivery technologies.'