STADA acquires UK pharma group Forum Bioscience for Euro 55.6m

STADA Arzneimittel has, via subsidiaries, completed a contract for the acquisition of the UK pharmaceutical group Forum Bioscience Holdings, of Redhill, Surrey, from Japanese company Ajinomoto Co. and the co-founder Peter Duckworth for £37.7m (Euro 55.6m).

The Forum Bioscience Group is a pure sales company with no production facilities of its own, employing 125 people. In the fiscal year ended 31 March, 2007, the Group achieved sales of £55.6m (€82.0m), an operating profit of £4.3m (€6.3m) and net profit of £3.0m (€4.5m), primarily in the UK.

The acquired Forum Bioscience Group consists of various companies, which are divided into two divisions: Britannia and Forum Products.

The Britannia division, which is smaller in terms of sales but generates all of the Group's profits, is focused on the sale of partially licensed branded products with off-patent active ingredients in market niches of the UK pharmaceutical market; by far the biggest product is APO-go (active ingredient apomorphine, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease) with annual sales of approx. £14.3m (€21.1m).

The Britannia business model fits in well with the existing STADA business in the UK, because the STADA sales company there, Genus Pharmaceuticals, has also been pursuing a sales concept targeted toward market niches for off-patent active ingredients in the area between generics and branded products. Consequently, Britannia will probably be integrated with the local STADA sales structures quickly.

The Forum Products division is among other things, trading with active and supplementary ingredients, mainly in the area of veterinary medicine. It will not be part of the core business and will continue to operate separately.