Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma buys Indian API plant from JV partner

Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services is taking full control of an API manufacturing facility in India as the CDMO continues to bulk up in a market that favors companies that can do it all.

Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma today announced it is buying the 50% share of the joint venture still owned by Indian partner Granules OmniChem (GOC). The JV was first established in 2011 and operates a plant in Visakhapatnam that manufactures small-molecule intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"GOC has been a well-run producer of high-quality API since its formation, which was designed, constructed and is managed based on our Belgian sites’ GMP operating standards and quality systems," Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma CEO David Enloe said in a statement.

This move follows several others as the company expands and consolidates its operations. In 2018, then Ajinomoto Althea and U.S.-based OmniChem combined their large- and small-molecule operations. Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Ajinomoto, earlier this year folded GeneDesign into its operations. 

The CDMO in 2016 acquired the Japanese CDMO that produces nucleic acid drugs but kept it as a separate company. The operation has a 2,000-square-meter facility in Osaka that manufactures oligonucleotide APIs and does custom synthesis. 

The moves by the company mirror some of the steps taken by other CDMOs to expand operations in a variety of areas. Somerset, New Jersey-based Catalent, for one, this year laid out $1.2 billion for Paragon Bioservices to bust into the gene therapy realm. It then followed that up with a $40 million investment at its manufacturing facility in Winchester, Kentucky, to boost its formulation and controlled-release tablet and capsule manufacturing.  

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