Some of the biggest stories coming out of Spain’s pharma industry, including Brookfield’s bid for a troubled Grifols; Esteve’s Spanish plant expansion; Rovi’s offers for a potential buyout of its CDMO business, and the EUR 90 million earmarked by Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU) to promote biomedical and health research.
Grifols says founding family, Brookfield looking to delist drugmaker (Reuters)
Esteve will invest 100 million euros in the contruction of a new plant (Company website)
ESTEVE has begun work to build a new manufacturing unit at its Celrà plant (Girona), a project for which it plans to invest 100 million euros until 2026. The company will thus expand the production capacity of active pharmaceutical ingredients in its main industrial centre. In addition, when the new facilities are operational in the last quarter of 2026, ESTEVE will have around 100 people who will join its current staff of 370 professionals.
The expansion will include the construction of new production and service buildings, as well as the installation of up to 150 cubic meters of reaction volume. This will result in a 45% increase in ESTEVE’s current production capacity in Celrà and an additional 15% increase in the company’s global capacity.
ROVI invests 60 million euros to increase production capacity by 31.5 percent at the San Sebastián de los Reyes plant (Pharma Market, in Spanish)
The Investment Accelerator of the Community of Madrid has declared as a strategic project the expansion that Laboratorios ROVI, through its subsidiary ROVI Pharma Industrial Services, S.A.U., will undertake at its plant in San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid), with which the biotech company plans to significantly increase its current production capacity, thanks to the commissioning of a new high-speed line with a capacity of 100 million syringes. The expansion project will involve an investment of around 60 million euros.
Spain’s Rovi receives offers for potential sale of €2B-plus CDMO group (Fierce Pharma)
After announcing a review of “strategic alternatives” for its contract manufacturing division back in March, Madrid-based drugmaker Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi now says it has received buyout offers for the unit.
In a statement Wednesday, Rovi said it “has received from various entities non-binding offers for the acquisition of said business.” The company’s disclosure (PDF) came in response to press reports that the company’s division was attracting buyout interest.
NICE backs monthly eczema drug from Almirall (Pharma Phorum)
IL-13 inhibitor Ebglyss (lebrikizumab) has been recommended (PDF) by cost-effectiveness agency NICE for people aged 12 and over with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis that has not responded to at least one system immunosuppressant treatment, or in cases where these are not suitable. It was approved for that indication by the UK drugs regulator last December.
The drug will enter the UK market as an alternative to Sanofi and Regeneron’s widely-used IL-4 and IL-13 inhibitor Dupixent (dupilumab), which was backed for atopic dermatitis in 2018 and requires dosing every two weeks, and other therapies. Ebglyss is given twice a week in the first month, then once every four weeks thereafter for those who respond to the drug.
The MICIU earmarks 90 million euros to boost biomedical and health research in Spain (Ministry website, in Spanish)
The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICIU), through the Carlos III Institute of Health (ISCIII), will allocate 90 million euros to promote biomedical and health research in Spain through three calls for proposals.
The three calls will be deployed within the framework of the PERTE for Vanguard Health and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, and under the umbrella of the Strategic Action in Health (AES), the main tool for funding health research in Spain, which is managed by the ISCIII.
Spain improves drug production; the next challenge is to produce advanced therapies (Diario Farma, in Spanish)
Spain is one of the European countries with the greatest potential for drug production at a time when medicines have proven to be a strategic and security asset for countries. The pharmaceutical industry currently has a total of 174 drug production plants in operation, located in up to 13 autonomous communities.
This is according to the Study of the industrial implementation of the pharmaceutical sector in Spain carried out by the consultancy firm ManageArt for Farmaindustria, which details what they are, what type of activity they carry out and what impact the production plants in this sector have.
Spain: Mediktor expands US footprint with acquisition of Sensely (Investors in Healthcare)
Mediktor, a Spain-based digital healthcare company, has announced the acquisition of Sensely, a San Francisco-based, digital healthcare provider that pioneered an empathy-driven conversation platform to support hospital systems and insurance services.
