Aurobindo to buy Apotex’s operations

Hyderabad-based Aurobindo Pharma has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Canadian pharmaceuticals company Apotex International Inc’s commercial operations and some aspects of supporting infrastructure in five European countries for ^74 million (~5.93 billion) in an all-cash deal.

The acquisition will extend and diversify Aurobindo’s European product portfolio by adding more than 200 generics and over 80 over-the-counter (OTC) products that had sales of ^133 million in the year ended March 2018.

Aurobindo clocked sales of ^577 million in Europe in the last financial year. The company led the pack among Indian pharma majors with a 33 per cent year-on-year rise in sales in the EU market in the last financial year.

V Muralidharan, senior vice-president, European operations, said: “This acquisition is a key step towards our goal of becoming one of the leading generics companies in Europe.” Although some of these businesses are lossmaking, Aurobindo “expects them to return to profitability when combined with its vertically integrated platform and existing commercial infrastructure”.

Aurobindo’s step-down subsidiary, Agile Pharma B V (Netherlands), has signed the definitive agreement with Apotex International. The company expects to close the deal in three-six months.

Apart from the more than 200 generics and 88 OTC products, there is an additional pipeline of over 20 products expected to be launched over the next two years. There is also a manufacturing facility in Leiden in the Netherlands, with capabilities in manufacturing and packaging and a capacity of 1.8 billion tablets per annum.

With the acquisition of Apotex Inc’s commercial operations in the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Belgium, Aurobindo will be able to improve its market access, besides adding a quarter of its existing European revenues in the form of Apotex’s sales.

Aurobindo has been expanding its European footprint since 2006, both organically and via acquisitions, across several key markets, the most notable among them being the acquisitions of Actavis’s commercial operations in seven Western European countries in 2014 and Generis Farmaceutica in Portugal in 2017.

Its current European business spans nine countries, including the UK, France and Belgium, and involves government business, tender generics, branded generics and the hospital generics segments.

The acquisition will extend and diversify the firm’s European product portfolio by adding more than 200 generics and over 80 OTC products