Bioavailability boost: Capsugel to up micronization offering at US site
The New Jersey, US firm gained the Quakertown plant in January when it completed the acquisition of Xcelience and Powdersize.
At present, the facility provides pharmaceutical industry customers with a range of particle size reduction services. It houses a pilot-scale micronisation suite.
Capsugel said the expansion – financial terms of which were not provided – will further expand its bioavailability enhancement offering when completed and operational in January.
The former-Pfizer unit’s focus for bioavailability has rapidly increased since it launched its dosage for business in in February 2013.
Since then Capsugel has added capabilities from the acquisition of Encap and, in October 2013, drug delivery firm Bend Research.
In May, it added micro-dose capabilities at its facility in Ploërmel, France.
At the time it said it had replicated micro-dosing operations at Xcelience's facility in Tampa Florida at the French site in order to be closer to European customers.
Takeover or IPO?
In April Reuters reported last week that Capsugel is "preparing to explore a sale or an initial public offering (IPO)" suggesting that Danaher, 3M, Becton-Dickinson, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bayer and Catalent.
Capsugel's owner US private equity investor Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) - which acquired the firm from Pfizer in 2011 – did not commented on the report.
