Copenhagen, Denmark, March 1st 2019
Xellia Pharmaceuticals (‘Xellia’), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on providing important anti-infective treatments against serious and often life-threatening infections has entered into an agreement to divest Xellia’s Raleigh, North Carolina manufacturing plant to Sagent Pharmaceuticals Inc., (‘Sagent’), a leader of specialty pharmaceutical products with an emphasis on the injectable market.
The Raleigh facility is mainly used for producing lyophilized injectable products for Xellia’s own business as well as contract manufacturing. The transaction does not involve any transfer of product or intellectual property rights. The production of certain Xellia products will be transferred to the company’s two main sterile injectable sites in Cleveland and Copenhagen whereas other products will continue to be manufactured at the Raleigh site after the divestment.
As part of the contract, Xellia will continue to operate the plant for an interim period to assure a smooth and seamless transition. At the end of this period the operation of the facility will transfer to Sagent and all of the approximately 120 staff will be offered employment with Sagent. Financial terms of the agreement are not disclosed.
Commenting on the divestment, Carl-Åke Carlsson, CEO at Xellia Pharmaceuticals said:
“We expanded our business during 2018 from being a manufacturer and leading supplier of important established anti-infectives to pharmaceutical customers to now include Xellia’s own label of established and innovative value-added sterile injectable anti-infective products which we are selling directly to the USA hospital market. Many of our value-added products are intended to enhance patient care by providing convenience and ease of use for healthcare professionals.
As part of this transformation we took the strategic decision to focus manufacturing investment on Cleveland and Copenhagen in order to ensure that we have the production capabilities to match our growing portfolio of established and innovative products and sufficient space to enable the facility expansions as needed.”
Xellia is investing significantly in the USA. The Company established a commercial organization in Buffalo Grove, near Chicago in September 2018, which is now the site of its North American headquarters. This commercial organization is supporting the launch of its own label established and innovative anti-infective drugs to the USA institutional markets. In February this year, Xellia received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the first product from its innovative pipeline, Premixed Vancomycin Injection in a Ready-to-Use (RTU) bag, for the USA market. Xellia has also made substantial equipment upgrades and building improvements to its manufacturing site in Cleveland, Ohio and is working closely with the FDA to commence full manufacturing operations at the site during 2019.
For more information, please contact:
Xellia Pharmaceuticals
Carl-Åke Carlsson, CEO
Tel: +45 32 64 55 00
Instinctif Partners (International media relations)
Eileen Paul / Rozi Morris / Melanie Toyne-Sewell
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7457 2020
Email: xellia@instinctif.com