Piramal in talks to buy US contract drug maker Cambridge for $200 m
Piramal Healthcare (PHL) is in talks to buy US contract drug manufacturer Cambridge Major Laboratories (CML) for around $200 million, a person with direct knowledge of the development said. “Early stage negotiations are on and it will take a while to conclude the deal,” he said. PHL is the flagship company of the Ajay Piramal-owned Piramal Group while the Wisconsin-based unlisted CML makes pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in drugs. The company is a global chemistry outsourcing partner to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, owning three facilities in US and one in Europe.
An email sent to the address mentioned on the CML website remained unanswered. “As per policy, we do not comment on market speculation,” a PHL spokesperson said.
Piramal, who built his pharmaceuticals empire with 25 takeovers in two decades, sold his domestic drug business to Abbott Laboratories in May 2010 for $3.8 billion (around Rs 16,500 crore then). At the time of the sale, Piramal had said that the money would be channeled into businesses providing high returns, and that “opportunities were everywhere.”
As on March 2012, PHL had cash and current investments of R444 crore. It had receivables of R4,000 crore from Abbott.
PHL operates in five sectors – pharma, drug discovery, information management, financial services and defence. The pharmaceuticals segment includes contract manufacturing, global critical care and over-the-counter businesses. “We will pursue organic and inorganic growth in all these segments,”PHL group chief financial officer Rajesh Laddha had told FE during a recent interaction.
Consultants said contract manufacturing holds
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