PICKING UP THE PIECES

IN 2004, when suppliers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) were several years into a prolonged slump, the management of a generic API plant operated by BASF in Cramlington, England, sensed it was the right time to launch a new fine chemicals business. The group acquired the site through a management buyout and formed Aesica. By 2006, the contract API sector had started to rebound, fueled in part by drug companies closing or selling their manufacturing plants and shifting production to third-party suppliers. Aesica took advantage of this trend and acquired two other sites in England—an API plant from Merck & Co. and an API and formulation facility from Abbott Laboratories. Other pharmaceutical chemical companies have acquired unwanted big pharma API plants, but Aesica is the first contract manufacturer built solely out of discarded drug industry assets. Now it has set out on a potentially more difficult task: creating the relationships with major drug companies ...