German CDMO Adragos Pharma has acquired Swiss manufacturer Baccinex, marking the addition of its sixth global manufacturing site and strengthening its position in sterile manufacturing. The facility, based in Courroux, Switzerland, specializes in fill-finish services for clinical trials and small-to-medium-scale commercial production. It will continue to operate under the leadership of founder and CEO Ursula Bausch.

Since its 2020 founding, Adragos has pursued an aggressive growth strategy across Europe and Asia which includes major investments in a former Sanofi facility located in Japan, acquiring a sterile manufacturing site from Fresenius Kabi in Norway, and upgrading its French facility to produce 160 million ampoules annually.

The following article originally appeared in Fierce Pharma.

German CDMO Adragos Pharma has been on a growth tear this year, drafting plans to boost capacity in Japan, upgrading a facility in France, taking over another from Fresenius Kabi in Norway and more.

Now, the manufacturing arriviste—which was founded in 2020—is expanding its production network again with the acquisition of a contracting neighbor in Switzerland.

Adragos has successfully bought out Swiss CDMO Baccinex, the companies said Monday. The deal, for which financial details weren’t disclosed, is expected to significantly bolster Adragos’ sterile manufacturing efforts, with an emphasis on aseptic fill-finish and freeze-drying services.

The transaction also provides Adragos with its sixth manufacturing site globally, with Baccinex’s plant in the Swiss municipality of Courroux joining a cadre of existing Adragos sites in Europe and Japan.

Baccinex, which has been in operation for more than two decades, specializes in fill-finish services for both liquid and freeze-dried vials. The company focuses primarily on clinical trial supply and small-to-medium-scale commercial production, Adragos and Baccinex said in their release.

Baccinex’s CEO and founder, Ursula Bausch, Ph.D., will continue to lead the acquired company under the Adragos banner.

From humble beginnings in Munich, Adragos has grown swiftly, charting multiple expansion and takeover projects in recent years.

Most notably, the CDMO is making a concerted push into Japan, leveraging a legacy facility it purchased from Sanofi in Kawagoe, near Tokyo, in 2022.

Financial terms were not disclosed when Adragos picked up the facility, which manufactured all Sanofi medicines for the Japanese market. Under the deal, Adragos inked a long-term supply agreement to continue manufacturing products for Sanofi for five years and become a strategic commercial partner in Japan.

At the top of this year, Adragos said it planned to invest 2.5 billion Japanese yen (about $16.3 million) in the facility by 2028. By April, the company had firmed up plans to reinvest in manufacturing at the site with the goal to be able to crank out 500 million tablets annually in the near term.

Adragos plans to grow the plant's to 1 billion tablets by “mid-2025” and has “its sights set on expanding production capacity to 2 billion tablets in the not so distant future,” the company said earlier this year.

Meanwhile, in March, Adragos completed the acquisition of a former Fresenius Kabi production site in Halden, Norway, adding capacity for sterile liquid manufacturing.

The facility is equipped to crank out sterile liquids in IV bags and has blow-fill-seal technology on deck for ampoules and vials as well as local compounding.

More recently, Adragos in early November launched a new ampoule filling line at its Livron facility in France, boosting capacity to more than 160 million ampoules per year. The new filing line marks the fourth at Adragos’ Livron plant.

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