As the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic con­tin­ues to chal­lenge the glob­al drug sup­ply chain, na­tions are look­ing for new ways to en­able na­tive pro­duc­ers to con­tin­ue scal­ing up. Now, an Is­raeli API mak­er is drop­ping a down pay­ment in­to an In­di­an in­ter­me­di­ates com­pa­ny to ramp up its own man­u­fac­tur­ing base.

Wave­length Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals will pay an undis­closed sum to buy up a ma­jor­i­ty stake in Hy­der­abad’s Vana­mali Or­gan­ics, an In­di­an firm spe­cial­iz­ing in mak­ing drug in­ter­me­di­ates and start­ing ma­te­ri­als that will add to Wave­lengths’ API con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ing work, the com­pa­ny said in a re­lease.

In tak­ing con­trol of Vana­mali, Wave­length will dou­ble the firm’s pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty and add more than 10 key reg­u­la­to­ry start­ing ma­te­ri­als and drug in­ter­me­di­ates for Wave­length’s own strate­gic APIs and API CD­MO cus­tomers, a Wave­length spokes­woman said by email.

If­tach Seri

As cur­rent­ly con­sti­tut­ed, Vana­mali em­ploys rough­ly 140 works in Hy­der­abad, Telan­gana, that spe­cial­ize in API start­ing ma­te­ri­als and con­tract re­search, ac­cord­ing to its web­site. Wave­length said the In­di­an firm cur­rent­ly sports enough ca­pac­i­ty for re­search- to com­mer­cial-scale pro­duc­tion of its drug in­ter­me­di­ates.

“The ac­qui­si­tion of Vana­mali Or­gan­ics rep­re­sents the next stage of this in­vest­ment strat­e­gy,” Wave­length CEO If­tach Seri said in a state­ment. ” We are de­light­ed to add their tal­ent­ed team and ad­vanced de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties to Wave­length, and we ex­pect they will be im­por­tant con­trib­u­tors to our glob­al sup­ply chain net­work and our rapid­ly grow­ing cus­tom de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing ser­vices busi­ness.”

Wave­length, a more than 30-year-old firm based in Petah Tik­va, launched its API CD­MO busi­ness in ear­ly 2020 and cur­rent­ly sports more than 250 cus­tomers from 50 coun­tries. The com­pa­ny’s con­tract arm churns out more than 250 met­ric tons of com­mer­cial APIs every year for in­jecta­bles, in­hal­ables, high­ly po­tent, cy­to­tox­ic and con­trolled sub­stances, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease.

Dur­ing Covid-19, the com­pa­ny has helped fill a void in meet­ing API de­mand for med­i­cines used to treat pa­tients with the virus. In April of last year, Wave­length ex­pand­ed its pro­duc­tion of API for three gener­ic drugs— seda­tive mi­da­zo­lam, mus­cle re­lax­ant cisatracuri­um, and par­a­lyt­ic rocuro­ni­um — to help keep up with hos­pi­tal de­mand.

The com­pa­ny was one of many to step in­to the void for need­ed gener­ic med­i­cines as chron­ic short­ages crip­pled ac­cess to key drugs, specif­i­cal­ly in the ear­ly- to mid-stages of the pan­dem­ic. That short­age ac­tu­al­ly led the FDA to thaw its re­la­tion­ship with com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies — which was once par­tic­u­lar­ly icy — to ramp up pro­duc­tion.

Wave­length’s growth in the API space comes as na­tions around the world look to de­vel­op re­dun­dant sup­ply chains for key gener­ic med­i­cines amid the pan­dem­ic. In­dia and Chi­na are two of the lead­ing play­ers in that game, and US leg­is­la­tors for months have pushed for an ag­gres­sive “on­shoring” of drug pro­duc­tion to coun­ter­act the na­tion’s re­liance on for­eign pro­duc­ers. Is­rael, a key al­ly to the US, could be a log­i­cal part­ner in that ef­fort, but the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so took out big bets on US firms to set up shop state­side.

With its Allergan buyout now long in the books, AbbVie has been taking a hard look at its suddenly expansive global ops to find space for a deal. Now, working with a Chinese cell and gene therapy player hungry for more elbow room abroad, AbbVie has taken one UK facility off its books.

AbbVie has offloaded its Liverpool manufacturing site as part of a $118.7 million sale to Chinese cell and gene therapy player Pharmaron, which is pitching the purchase as the next step in its global expansion plans, the companies said last week.

Jazz CEO Bruce Cozadd didn’t beat around the bush.

In his first video meeting with GW Pharma chief Justin Gover last July 8, he offered to pay $172 a share to get the company, which had beaten the odds in getting its remarkable cannabinoid drug Epidiolex across the regulatory finish line for epilepsy. GW’s stock closed at $129 that day.

Cozadd had already done his homework on the financing to make sure he could swing it the way he wanted. He just needed to do some due diligence before making the non-binding bid firm.