Flush with cash from Covid-19 work, con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers are hav­ing their own M&A mi­ni-boom. Now, a UK-based man­u­fac­tur­ing ser­vices firm is snag­ging an­oth­er com­pa­ny head­quar­ter on the Isles, look­ing to set up an end-to-end of­fer­ing for cus­tomers.

Mark Egerton

Not­ting­ham drug de­vel­op­er and man­u­fac­tur­ing ac­cel­er­a­tor Quo­tient an­nounced plans this week to buy Ar­ci­no­va, an­oth­er con­tract de­vel­op­er with over four decades in the in­dus­try.

Quo­tient said the move will fur­ther ex­pand the com­pa­ny’s ser­vice port­fo­lio by in­te­grat­ing drug sub­stance, prod­uct and test­ing abil­i­ties un­der the same um­brel­la, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease. This, CEO Mark Egerton said, will fur­ther im­prove the com­pa­ny’s one-year drug de­vel­op­ment time­line sav­ings al­ready avail­able through Quo­tient’s pri­ma­ry tech­nol­o­gy, Trans­la­tion­al Phar­ma­ceu­tics.

“I’d like to con­grat­u­late the Ar­ci­no­va team on build­ing an ex­cit­ing busi­ness, and I am thrilled to be join­ing forces,” he said in a state­ment. “Both busi­ness­es are sim­i­lar in cul­ture and as­pire to help cus­tomers ac­cel­er­ate mol­e­cules from can­di­date se­lec­tion through de­vel­op­ment and on to com­mer­cial launch.”

Quo­tient has been buoyed in re­cent months by CD­MO work in Covid-19 ther­a­peu­tics, most no­tably an Au­gust part­ner­ship with ANA Ther­a­peu­tics. The biotech in De­cem­ber was bought by Neu­roBo, and ANA001 (or niclosamide cap­sules), re­mains in a clin­i­cal tri­al for pos­si­ble de­vel­op­ment as a treat­ment for the res­pi­ra­to­ry virus.

Ian Shott

Ar­ci­no­va’s 160 em­ploy­ees will now join the fold at Quo­tient, which Ar­ci­no­va ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Ian Shott said aligns well with the goals the com­pa­ny has had since its in­cep­tion.

“We set out to build a unique or­ga­ni­za­tion that ac­cel­er­ates the de­vel­op­ment of new med­i­cines for pa­tients in need,” Schott said. “We are de­light­ed to move on to the next stage with Quo­tient as the per­fect part­ner for Ar­ci­no­va.”

Fi­nan­cial terms of the sale weren’t dis­closed, but as part of the ac­qui­si­tion, Ar­ci­no­va’s mi­nor­i­ty eq­ui­ty part­ner BGF will leave the busi­ness.

The Endpoints News team is continuing to track IPO filings for 2021, and we’ve designed a new tracker page for the effort.

Check it out here: Biopharma IPOs 2021 from Endpoints News

You’ll be able to find all the biotechs that have filed and priced so far this year, sortable by quarter and listed by newest first. As of the time of publishing on Feb. 25, there have already been 16 biotechs debuting on Nasdaq so far this year, with an additional four having filed their S-1 paperwork.

California’s Avid Bioservices now has two simultaneous expansion projects underway as the CDMO’s projections for customer demand sparked the launch this week of the second phase of building out its Myford facility.

Avid expects construction on the second phase, which will be known as its Myford South facility to take 18 to 24 months to complete at a cost of roughly $45 million to $55 million, it said in a press release.

When former President Donald J. Trump was voted out of office Nov. 2, his gung-ho effort to “onshore” drug manufacturing was left mostly up in the air. Joe Biden has been mostly mum on whether he would continue that effort, but a new executive order could provide a clue — at least in a few months.

In an order signed Wednesday, Biden demanded a 100-day governmental review of key supply chains, including for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) used in American drugs.

S&P Global has taken a look at the dominant forces shaping the pharma market and come to the conclusion that there will be more downgrades than upgrades in 2021 — the 8th straight year of steady decline.

But it’s not all bad news. Some things are looking up, and there’s still plenty of money to be made in an industry that enjoys a 30% to 40% profit margin, once you factor in steep R&D expenses.