Dishman buys Solvay fine chemicals

Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals has made another incursion into European assets by signing a memorandum of understanding to acquire the fine chemicals, vitamin D and vitamin D analogues business of Solvay Pharmaceuticals at Veeenendaal, Netherlands। The deal is expected to close within four months। Dishman added that the acquisition”will not only increase the basket of products of Dishman but also bring in new customer relationships”.

Indications are that vitamin D3 production will be transferred to India, thus bringing more fine chemicals expertise there, while the other products will remain in the Netherlands. For Solvay, the sale of the two businesses will enable it to focus more on its core areas of cardio-metabolic and neuroscience treatments.

More importantly, Dishman’s existing contract under to supply about 90 tonnes/year of the API for Teveten (Eprosartan Mesylate), Solvay’s anti-hypertensive drug, will not change. The contract expires in December 2008, but can be renewed annually until its patent protection ends in 2013. Since an FDA inspection at its Bavla site in 2006, Dishman has been able to supply this API for use in the US as well as Europe.Separately, Dishman has announced the integration of another of its previous European acquisitions, SynProTec DCR of the UK, into CarboGen-Amcis.

SynProTec DCR specialises in process research and custom synthesis of pharmaceutical intermediates and has capacity of up to 4,500 litres for production of early phase APIs and large-scale intermediates. Griffiths said that capacity combined capacity will increase and material produced at SynProTec DCR can be further processed at CarboGen Amcis’s Swiss facilities.