“The acquisition of Snapdragon will accelerate our growth in the area of continuous flow process development and manufacturing, complementing our recent organic investments in our High Point, North Carolina facility,” said Cambrex CEO Tom Loewald. “With R&D and manufacturing capabilities in the heart of Boston’s biopharma hub, Snapdragon will continue to focus on solving their customers’ most difficult process development challenges.”

The deal will be Cambrex’s second this year, having taken over Ireland’s Q1 Scientific in June. Q1 Scientific provides environmentally controlled cGMP stability storage services for the pharma, medical device and life science industries from its facility in Waterford.

Snapdragon CEO Matt Bio said the combination of its process development capabilities with Cambrex’s larger-scale manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe was a natural fit. In May, Snapdragon opened a second facility in Boston to manufacture experimental pharmaceutical products for human clinical trials, greatly expanding its capacity for supplying clinical intermediates and drug substances.

Earlier this year, China’s Asymchem Laboratories (Tianjin) was planning to take over Snapdragon, but the deal did not get past the US Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS). Bio announced in September that the proposed acquisition was off as the companies were unable to agree on mitigation terms that would satisfy CFIUS. However, he added that Snapdragon and Asymchem would continue to collaborate on current and future client projects.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist