In a bid to break into the CDMO business at one of its most lucrative angles, India's Granules is snapping up Swiss contract manufacturer Senn Chemicals.
The deal, once closed, will immediately propel Granules into the fast-growing market for peptide-based therapeutics thanks to Senn's know-how in both liquid-phase peptide synthesis (LPPS) and solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS), Granules explained in a press release.
Although Granules didn’t disclose the sale price, The Economic Times reported the price tag at 20 million Swiss francs ($22.3 million). The deal is expected to close in the first half of this year.
Senn already boasts a strong CDMO business and an established rolodex of clients, Granules said in its release.
The company aims to make a name for itself in the peptide-based drug market for diabetes and obesity, which has experienced a meteoric rise in recent years thanks to the advent of GLP-1 drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.
“By entering the rapidly growing peptide therapeutics segment and acquiring CDMO capabilities, we are expanding into next-generation therapeutics that align with our commitment to innovation and affordability,” Krishna Prasad Chigurupati, Granules’ chair and managing director, said in the company's release.
Granules and Senn have already been working together to develop a pair of GLP-1-based active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and they expect to add more peptide-based APIs to their portfolio in the future with the help of Senn’s R&D capabilities.
The Granules news comes amid a boom in the industry's peptide manufacturing efforts. In mid-February, German CDMO Axplora revealed a 50-million-euro upgrade at its production facility in Mourenx, France, designed to boost overall peptide purification strength and support the development of new biologic therapies, including GLP-1 drugs to treat diabetes and obesity.
A month ago, the research and CDMO group BioDuro debuted a new peptide synthesis production facility at its campus in the Zhangjiang tech center in Shanghai.
And in September, South Korea’s SK pharmteco said it would shell out $260 million to build out its capacity to make small-molecules and peptides at what would be the CDMO’s fifth manufacturing facility in its home country.