The acquisition follows an agreement reached earlier this year with Teva for the Sicor Bulciago site in Lecco. The site has a long history of established cGMP manufacturing of pharmaceutical materials, including APIs.

Flamma said the ability to integrate Sicor Bulciago into the group will be enhanced by the site’s proximity to its headquarters, as well as the familiarity of numerous current Flamma employees who previously worked at the site.

“We are extremely happy to bring the Bulciago site into the Flamma Group of companies. This allows us to rapidly enhance our CMC [chemistry, manufacturing and controls] offerings to our customers by providing further flexibility between sites,” said Flamma CEO Gianpaolo Negrisoli.

“Having the ability to produce more generic APIs in Italy is in line with the European Pharmaceutical strategy aiming to reshore by having a more robust and resilient supply chain in the pharmaceutical sector that is not totally dependent on Asia.”

During the past few years, the company has added Flamma USA in Malvern, Pennsylvania, to handle early-stage small molecule projects. Last November, the firm announced it had finished recommissioning the high potency API (HPAPI) suite at Malvern.

Flamma is also undertaking an R&D expansion in Chignolo, Italy, that will quadruple its R&D space there and provide additional analytical resources, along with starting an expansion this year of its facility in Dalian, China.

Over the next three years, Flamma will invest more than €150 million to increase capacity and add new technologies across its three sites.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist