3M to sell Derby Road site - around 445 staff to transfer
Shock announcement in 50th anniversary year of ownership
LOUGHBOROUGH healthcare company 3M has announced it is selling its Derby Road business, along with its research and development arm, which is based at the nearby Charnwood Campus (the former AstraZeneca site). The move, which will see approximately 445 staff members transfer over to new owners, comes after the firm has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of acquiring the site in 1969. The company will, however, retain its other building, No. 47, on Charnwood Campus, which employs around 70 people in Medical Solutions sales and marketing and support functions. The news was announced to the stock market last week, with the company announcing it had entered into an agreement to sell substantially all of its drug delivery business to an affiliate of Altaris Capital Partners, LLC. 3M will receive approximately $650m in total, including cash, an interest-bearing security, and a 17 per cent non-controlling interest in the new company. A spokesperson for 3M told the Echo: “The 3M manufacturing facility at Derby Road Loughborough is included in the transaction. “Subject to landlord approval, the lease for the R&D facility (Building 39) at Charnwood Campus, Loughborough, will also transfer in the sale. “Building 47 at Charnwood Campus does not form part of this announcement. “All UK employees assigned to the drug delivery systems business, of which approximately 445 are based in Loughborough, will automatically transfer to the buyer. “The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2020, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.” The Derby Road site was built on the grounds of an aircraft hangar on the perimeter of a wartime airfield, the original factory took two years to complete and was commissioned by Riker Laboratories, a company acquired by 3M in 1969. It was opened by the-then chancellor of Loughborough University, Lord Pilkington and housed 150 operators, engineers and laboratory staff producing tablets, capsules and fine chemicals. Production facilities for pressurised metered dose inhalers for asthma and other respiratory diseases, for which the site is best known, were added later. The site has seen considerable expansion of its initial footprint, one of the most significant developments being in 1997, when a £12m investment by 3M doubled the size of the original factory and distribution centre. Announcing the sale, Michael Roman, 3M chairman and chief executive officer said: “The drug delivery business is a leading provider of transdermal and inhalation delivery technologies. “This transaction will allow us to focus more resources on our core health care business as well as retain a share in the value of the drug delivery business as it grows over the coming years.”