Wacker’s chemical group reported that it has acquired 100 percent of the shares of ADL BioPharma, a CMO. The shares were purchased from Kartesia, a financial investor with whom Wacker signed a corresponding agreement finalizing the transaction last week. Following Wacker’s purchase of fermentation assets in the northern Spanish city of León in 2016, the chemical group now owns the entire site, with total fermentation capacities of just under 3,000 m3 (gross volume).
The acquisition of the company, employing a staff of roughly 300, expands Wacker’s fermentation capacities by approximately 2,000 m3 (gross volume) and adds additional capacities for recovery and purification processes, according to Wacker CEO Christian Hartel, who added that Wacker will continue and grow existing customer relationships maintained by ADL BioPharma in its capacity as CMO for fermentation-based products for the food, pharmaceutical and consumer goods industries. The purchase price for the acquisition exceeds €100 million.
Foundation for growth
“Acquiring ADL BioPharma is an important step in the continued growth of our biotechnology business, with which we expect to generate one billion euros in sales in 2030,” continued Christian Hartel, explaining the reasons for the investment. “Development at ADL BioPharma has been good in recent years, and their sales have grown considerably. The additional fermentation capacities will provide a foundation for growth in the field of sustainably produced dietary ingredients. Wacker’s technological expertise combined with the capacities of ADL BioPharma will make us a much stronger player on this growth market.”
Wacker Biosolutions, the life science business of the Wacker Group, has operated fermentation plants at the León site for the past seven years. Since the 2016 transaction with ADL BioPharma, Wacker has produced fermentation-based cystine in León, offering its services as a contract manufacturing organization. Following this acquisition, the Munich-based chemical group upgraded the existing facilities and invested in additional production equipment.
“ADL BioPharma’s CMO business is a good fit for our portfolio,” noted Susanne Leonhartsberger, head of the Wacker Biosolutions business division. “The company maintains extensive, extraordinarily important customer relationships that we will continue to pursue and expand still further. We will integrate these activities into Biosolutions, for example, through the production of sustainable ingredients for the food and nutritional supplements industries. This is an area where we foresee opportunities for growth at the León site in the coming years.”
