German daily newspaper Handelsblatt said the divestment plans had been delayed due to the need to restructure operations following the company’s acquisition of the finished drug product manufacturing business of Switzerland’s Vifor in 2021. The deal included three production facilities in Fribourg und Ettingen, Switzerland, as well as Lisbon, Portugal.

According to the Bloomberg news agency, ICIG has hired investment bank William Blair to handle the sale that could potentially value the drugmaker at around €2.5 billion. Big name private equity investors such as Bain, Blackstone, Cinven, EQT and Permira are thought to be interested in at least studying the prospect. Corden has declined to comment on the mooted sale plans.

Following the expected divestment of the pharma asset, ICIG is seen as planning to focus on its chemicals holdings, which include CMO WeylChem and PVC producer Vynova as well as CarboTech, synthetic fiber composites maker Enka and Rütgers Organics.

CordenPharma expands asset base

In recent months, CordenPharma has been steadily expanding its asset base. Alongside the Vifor transaction, the company announced it would spend nearly €10 million on a new GMP facility at its Plankstadt, Germany, campus for oral solid drugs to be used in clinical trials. It also invested in the expansion of production in the US state of Colorado and at Chenôve, France, and signed a deal with Germany’s Wacker Chemie to jointly develop knowhow and processes for manufacturing lipid nanoparticles (LNP).

In its first project of 2022, the company announced a collaboration with PeptiSystems, a Swedish developer of instruments for peptide and oligonucleotide therapeutic process development and manufacturing based on flow through column technology.

At its peptide center of excellence in Frankfurt, Germany, CordenPharma has introduced PeptiSystems’ innovative solution to reduce the environmental impact of its Process Mass Intensity (PMI) of peptide manufacturing processes. The concept, it says, allows manufacturing in continuous mode, thereby reducing solvent consumption and waste by at least 40% in all peptides produced by Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS).

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist