Curia has announced plans to invest about $35 million in order to expand commercial-scale API manufacturing capacity at its largest site in Rensselaer, New York, over the course of 18 months. This is the third significant announcement in the month since the former AMRI renamed itself.
Two pharmaceutical CDMOs, AMRI in the US and UK-based Arcinova, have almost simultaneously announced full corporate rebranding exercises. The former has become Curia, which is derived from a Latin word for ‘purposeful assembly’, as of 12 July, while the latter is taking the name Quotient Sciences – Alnwick.
Pharmaceutical CDMO AMRI has invested both in terms of scale and compound handling capabilities and new expert personnel to address orphan and rare disease products. No figure has been disclosed of the sum involved.
At its headquarters site in Albany, New York, AMRI has added additional suites for 10-15 kg batch sizes. At Grafton, Wisconsin, it has expanded its hydrogenation, filtering and drying and analytical capabilities, the latter including LC-MS and GC-MS instruments, as well as new experts. The company has also expanded at Glasgow, UK.
The ongoing race to develop the first effective vaccines for the treatment of COVID-19 continues to generate manufacturing and development agreements between pharmaceutical giants, biotechs and CDMOs.
Most recently, Sterling Pharma Solutions agreed to carry out final purification of drug product for Moleculin Biotech’s WP1122 drug candidate from its site in Cary, North Carolina. Moleculin is about to submit an IND for this to the FDA and wanted a reliable source of supply in the US.
Via CA Clover Intermediate II Investments, private equity firm the Carlyle Group is to invest about $940 million in fresh equity capital for a 20% stake in Piramal Pharma, the healthcare subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Piramal Enterprises (PEL). This values the business at $2,775 million with an upside component of up to $360 million depending on the company’s performance this financial year.
Several of the world’s major pharmaceutical CDMOS have recently made announcements relating to their participation in projects to develop treatment for the Covid-19 virus. Many involve chloroquines, in anticipation of their large-scale use.
