French-based CDMO EuroAPI has reached an agreement with Sanofi to finance the implementation of its Focus-27 restructuring programme through a €200 million perpetual subordinated hybrid bond. Sanofi, from which EuroAPI was originally spun out, remains its main shareholder and customer. It also agreed in principle to reserve minimum available capacities for selected products manufactured by EuroAPI through a €54 million payment.

The European Commission has approved the first Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI). Under IPCEI Med4Cure, member states will provide up to €1 billion in public funding, which is expected to unlock €5.9 billion more in private funding.

EuroAPI has suspended all API production at its site in Brindisi, Italy, until further notice. This followed an internal audit in which “quality control deficiencies due to potential local misconduct” were identified. These are being further investigated.

During its full-year results presentation, CDMO and API supplier EuroAPI announced the launch of Focus-2027, a comprehensive project that will seek to unlock profitable growth and increase returns. Key means of achieving include:

* Streamlining the value-added API portfolio by discontinuing 13 with low or negative margins and focusing on highly differentiated, profitable products, such as vitamin B12, prostaglandins, peptides and oligonucleotides

* Having a focused CDMO offer “leveraging our recognised capabilities and technology platforms” *

CDMO EuroAPI has initiated what it calls “a pivotal collaboration” with SpiroChem, a Basel-based CRO that is specialised in chemical process R&D, or route scouting. They will seek to offer consolidated CRO-CDMO services, “ensuring that industrialisation constraints for small molecules are integrated from the initial step of drug design, thereby speeding up the process”.

EuroAPI has agreed to acquire BianoGMP, a CDMO focused on small-scale, early-stage oligonucleotides, for about €10 million. The deal is expected to close in Q4. Created in 2017 by Professor Tobias Pöhlmann and Dr Rolf Günther, Biano is based in Gera, Germany, with a client base in Europe and Asia.

EuroAPI has begun an initial, multi-million-Euro, four-year manufacturing agreement with Novéal, part of the L’Oréal Group. Under this, its CDMO business will develop and industrialise the manufacturing of cosmetic ingredients, with a focus on developing eco-responsible processes.

The deal encompasses several projects, the first of which will take place at the Frankfurt site, which has a dedicated line of complex chemistry production. Chief CDMO officer Cécile Maupas described cosmetics as “a new and growing segment for the business”.