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.

As part of its expansion plans for this year, Charnwood Molecular, a UK-based pre-clinical discovery CRO to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology market, has become the sole occupier of a three-storey laboratory facility at Charnwood Campus in Loughborough. This is being funded with support from European private equity fund Synova, which recently took a stake in the company.

In a pre-close trading update for the financial year ended 31 March 2021, Johnson Matthey (JM) CEO Robert MacLeod revealed that: “We have commenced a strategic review of Health, as we continue to focus resources to maximise value for our shareholders”.

Full results will be announced on 27 May but it is known that Health, which offers API custom manufacturing services, controlled substances, catalysts and generics, generated sales of £223 million, about 5% of the total sale. The division’s full-year operating performance is expected to be above the prior year.

German CDMO KD Pharma, which is one of the world’s largest producers of omega-3 fatty acids has acquired the assets of former CDMO RohnerChem at Pratteln, near Basel, Switzerland (pictured), and hired some of the former team. Terms were not disclosed.

KD said that it aims to become an even bigger player and that the site’s “unique chemical processes and technological capabilities” enabled it “to manufacture difficult, multi-step pharmaceutical intermediates and APIs. This is a natural fit with our strategy.”

New Jersey-based PMC Group International, a diversified manufacture of chemicals and pharmaceuticals, has acquired Cobra Investments Management from a consortium of previous owners. This includes Copperhead Chemical, which has a 350-hectare site at Tamaqua, Pennsylvania. Terms were not disclosed.

Raybow USA, the North American subsidiary of Chinese pharmaceutical CDMO Raybow Pharmaceuticals, is panning to invest $15.8 million to expand its site at Brevard, North Carolina, over the coming five years. This will triple capacity and add 74 jobs to the existing 24, including research chemists, pilot-plant personnel and supervisors.

CDMO Seqens is to partner with its French compatriot Rondol, a specialist in drug dosage extrusion technologies via hot melt extrusion. Their stated aim is “to accelerate the development and commercialisation of extruded dosage forms with improved bioavailability, reduced side effects and optimised manufacturing costs”. Seqens will implement the technique within its Seqens’Lab at Porcheville.