MUMBAI: Hyderabad-based drug contract manufacturer(CDMO) Suven Pharmaceuticals has agreed to acquire 56 per cent stake in the US-based NJ Bio known for making cancer drugs components for $64.4 million through a combination of primary and secondary share purchase valuing the target firm at $100 million.
Of the total payout, Suven will pay $49.4 million for buying out minority shareholders and then will pump $15 million as primary equity infusion which the company will redeploy to expand its Princeton facility, Suven said in a statement Saturday.
The transaction, expected to close before the end of this month, also gets Suven a call/put option arrangement to acquire a balance stake after five years.
The statement said the deal will help Suven further cement its position as a leading CDMO player, leading it's entry into the R&D and manufacturing base in the US, the world’s largest pharma market.
The Princeton-based NJ Bio was established by Dr Naresh Jain, who is a renowned ADC scientist, who will continue as CEO and retain his stake in the company. ADCs or antibody-drug conjugates are a class of biopharmaceutical drugs designed as a targeted therapy for treating cancer.
Investment of $64.4 million
Based in Princeton, NJ Bio is a premier ADC-focused CRDMO offering cutting-edge solutions across the ADC value chain. It has served over 150 customers, delivered over 500 projects in the past five years.
The deal will help Suven extend its current ADC offering with expertise across payload chemistry, payload-linker synthesis, bioconjugation, and ADC-specific analytical platform as NJ’s 80,000 sqft R&D and manufacturing facility in Princeton along with a pool of scientists will move into its fold. NJ Bio is expected to close this year with a revenue of $32 million.
Suven executive chairman Vivek Sharma said that this transaction is in line with our vision of being a technology-led CDMO, offering end-to-end solutions in emerging modalities like ADCs. NJ Bio’s capabilities and established customer relationships will accelerate Suven’s journey as a global leader in this fast-growing ADC/XDC segment which is emerging as a very important modality and has improved the lives of well over 100,000 patients already.
Dr V Prasada Raju, the managing director of Suven said, "Nj’s capabilities in drug discovery and early-stage development gives us the much-desired early entry point in the ADC drug development cycle while also giving us access to ADC-focused innovator companies with longstanding relationships and technology-focused CDMO, offering integrated solutions in custom synthesis, process R&D, and manufacturing for global innovators. With over 100 active projects and a strong pipeline of late-stage molecules, Suven has built a reputation for delivering complex solutions at scale on time".