Hovione Buys Pfizer's Loughbeg AP...( LOURES Portugal December 11 /- Ho...)

LOURES, Portugal, December 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Hovione announced today that it has agreed with Pfizer to acquire their Loughbeg Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) site in Ireland. This site manufactures intermediates for Lipitor active pharmaceutical ingredient.

The site has had a number of owners starting in 1984 with Angus Fine Chemicals, then Hickson & Welch, Warner Lambert, Pfizer and now Hovione. Over the last 10 years Pfizer has invested several hundred million dollars in plant and equipment there, making it a modern, well equipped site, meeting the highest standards in the industry. The deal is scheduled to be completed by early April 2009. Hovione Cork will employ 70-80 staff and will, over the next 24 months be transferring products from its Loures, Portugal site and validating processes for new compounds in expectation of drug approval. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed but Hovione will continue to provide manufacturing services for Pfizer.

"We made clinical trial materials for over 40 drug candidates last year. We have been investing heavily in R&D for over 6 years and now have a strong development pipe-line but have not invested in manufacturing assets since 2001, so it was time that we expanded our manufacturing capacity. This site offers everything that our Customers might want: large scale capacity, the highest standards, in a location where tax benefits are available to them and a well trained, innovative work-force" said Miguel Calado, CFO. The plant adds 427m3 of capacity to Hovione's 810m3 - of which 400m3 are in Portugal and the remainder in China. The plant is multi-purpose and is able to address a large number of specialized chemistries such as hydrogenation and low temperature chemistry. The Cork site also provides Hovione with a new, EUR70m capability to produce spray-dried formulations. Hovione is the world's leading provider of GMP spray-drying services cov
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