Stada confirms €3.5bn bid from Cinven and interest from Advent
Stada spokesman Christian Goertz confirmed the Cinven bid, but stressed that talks are at an early stage telling us “this is just the start of negotiations.”
Cinven's offer is for 100 percent of Stada’s business and values the Germany pharmaceutical ingredient supplier at €3.5bn ($3.7bn).
Separately, Stada announced it had also recieved an expression of interest from Advent International Corp, a Boston, US-based privated equity group.
APIs and drugs
Established in Dresden, Germany, the Stada group manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for both generics and branded products, including biosimilars.
The group has facilities in Germany, UK, Russia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Vietnam, China, Austria and Argentina.
In addition to supplying APIs, Stada also makes its own drugs, which include the cold and flu oral drug Grippostad at its plant in Bad Vilbel.
A second example is APO-go, a generic of apomorphine hydrochloride for Parkinson’s disease, produced by the firm’s UK subsidiary Brittania Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
Stada also has a vested interest in the biosimilars market, with plans to launch a therapy for chemotherapy-induced neutropenia this year, and another for autoimmune indication projected for 2018.
Despite this, “it's [still] far too early to talk about any consequences on manufacturing of our biosimilars,” Goertz told us.
European investment
As an equity firm which invests in pharma, Cinven also acquired the Ohio, US-based contract research organisation (CRO) Medpace in 2014.
Since its acquisition, Medpace has opened further operations in the UK, Poland and France to which Cinven claims is to “to support the rapidly expanding EU market.”
Other CROs Cinven has invested in include Pennsylvania, US-based Bioclinica and the German firm Labco (now SynLab International GmBh) in Munich.
Cinven had been planning a joint-bid for STADA with Poland’s private firm Polpharma SA, but according to a Reuters report decided against this due to the venture’s complexity.
