CordenPharma to Invest €900 Million to Meet GLP-1 Drug Demand

CordenPharma has announced that it is investing €900 mn (c.$982 mn) over the next three years to expand its peptide manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and Europe, driven by rising demand for GLP-1 drugs. The Swiss CDMO plans to build a third facility and add new manufacturing lines to its Boulder, Colorado site, and construct a new large-scale manufacturing facility elsewhere in Europe.

This expansion is backed by multiyear contracts worth €3 bn, with the company aiming for €1 bn in peptide sales by 2028, in comparison to the €880 mn it achieved in 2023.

The following article originally appeared in Yahoo Finance.

CordenPharma has announced its largest strategic investment to date with a committed spend of ~€900m over the next 3 years to grow its Peptide technology platform. These transformational plans consist of two major expansion initiatives occurring in parallel in the US and Europe, including both existing facilities and new constructions designed and built according to the pharmaceutical industry's most stringent quality and technical standards for short and long peptide manufacturing, including Biologics License Applications (BLA) requirements.

The US expansion involves bringing additional Peptide capacity to the CordenPharma Colorado site with the planned construction of a new large-scale manufacturing facility, and an additional increase in manufacturing trains in the existing facility. This is the result of rapidly increasing demand in the Diabetes and Obesity Glucagon-like Peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonist medications market, and comes off the back of multiple, long-term, multiyear contracts totaling ~€3bn, with potential upsides.

The European expansion centers on the construction of a new state-of-the-art greenfield facility, with the aim of creating additional Peptide capacity to serve customers from initial early clinical to late-stage commercial manufacturing. The new site will be located in the heart of Europe, fully-integrated within CordenPharma's existing facility network.

In 2022, CordenPharma was acquired by Astorg, a leading Pan-European private equity firm, and its ambitious growth plans aim to help the company reach their ~€1bn sales mark for its pioneering Peptide Platform, and ~€1.8bn total group revenue by 2028. Upon completion, the new constructions will be fully integrated within its outstanding network of world-class cGMP manufacturing facilities, along with the dedicated technical and regulatory support by expert teams needed to secure innovators' supply chains with small to large-scale fully-integrated services from APIs to Drug Products.

Dr. Michael Quirmbach, President & CEO of the CordenPharma Group comments: "These investments will profoundly strengthen our ability to provide valuable and much needed support to innovators for the benefit of patients. We are honored by the trust our customers have placed in us to deliver expert outsourcing for large multiyear contracts, and our team is proud to contribute decades of peptide manufacturing experience towards these transformative new medicines. In addition, the strong commitment and support of our shareholder Astorg demonstrates their strategic vision for CordenPharma to become the leading CDMO for complex modalities such as Peptides, by offering fully-integrated end-to-end services from APIs to Drug Products (for both Injectable and Oral Peptides)."

Dr. Signe Michel, Managing Director at Astorg comments: "We are proud of what Michael and the CordenPharma team have achieved through their striving for operational excellence, customer service and ambitious growth. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and to further strengthen the company's peptide offering across the full drug lifecycle and value chain."

Judith Charpentier, Co-Head Flagship Fund and Head of Healthcare at Astorg comments: "CordenPharma has a unique opportunity to reinforce its leadership position in peptides with unmatched capacity and performance in large scale manufacturing. With the company's proven track record and our investor experience in pharmaceutical services, we feel confident that our latest commitment will help the company seize this opportunity."

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