AGC expanding CDMO biz through $500m CMC Biologics buy

21-Dec-2016 - Last updated on 21-Dec-2016 at 10:39 GMT

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AGC Asahi Glass has signed an agreement to buy CMC Biologics, the second biologics CDMO acquisition for the Japanese chemicals firm in three months.

The firm said it is paying around ¥60bn ($509m) for the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), adding 530 employees and production facilities in Copenhagen, Denmark and US sites in Seattle and Berkeley.

CMC Biologics Chairman David Kauffmann said he was “excited” by becoming part of AGC.

“AGC's dedication to best technology solutions and long-time partnership with clients align so well with CMC Biologics' quest to be the preferred biologics CDMO service partner for the world's top pharmaceutical and biotech companies.”

CMC announced earlier this year it had invested in three Thermo Fisher 2,000L single-use bioreactors to be installed at its Copenhagen plant, offering customers 6,000L of volume in a single run through its 6PACK configuration platform.

The acquisition comes three months after AGC bought German CDMO Biomeva.

The deal was described as a leap into the microbial biologics contract manufacturing space for the Japanese chemical and glassmaker, adding 1,500L of capacity at Biomeva’s facility in Heidelberg.

AGC did not respond to a request for further information at the time of going to press regarding the latest acquisition.