Date: 2014-01-23
Type of information: Plant acquisition
Acquired company: Tigenix' s cell therapy production facility (Belgium)
Acquiring company: PharmaCell (The Netherlands)
Amount: €5.75 million
Terms: * On June 2, 2014, PharmaCell, a Dutch Contract Manufacturing Organization for cellular therapies and regenerative medicine in Europe, announced that it finalized its purchase of the state-of-the-art cell therapy production facility from TiGenix NV. TiGenix has completed the sale of its Dutch production facility for a total consideration of €5.75 million. TiGenix has received an upfront payment of €3.5 million, and will receive a final payment of €0.75 million in 2017. ChondroCelect will continue to be manufactured at the facility under a long-term manufacturing agreement, under the terms of which TiGenix will benefit from a cost relief of €1.5 million during the first three years, the largest portion of which comes in the first year. * On January 23rd, 2014, PharmaCell announced that it has entered into an agreement with TiGenix N.V. to purchase its state-of-the-art cell therapy production facility at the Chemelot site in Sittard-Geleen, close to Maastricht. TiGenix and PharmaCell have signed an agreement to purchase the shares of TiGenix B.V., which holds the manufacturing site, subject to certain closing conditions and intend to close the transaction in the coming months.
Details: PharmaCell acquires the facility, including its qualified team of employees in Production, QC, QA and other functions. ChondroCelect® will continue to be manufactured at the facility as before under a long-term CMO agreement with PharmaCell. In 2012, TiGenix’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Sittard-Geleen, the Netherlands, successfully passed cGMP inspection by the Dutch authorities, and obtained approval from the European Medicines Agency for the production of ChondroCelect®, the company’s commercial cell therapy product for cartilage repair in the knee. Following the acquisition, PharmaCell will continue to operate its Maastricht facility in addition to the site at Sittard-Geleen. The Maastricht facility offers non-GMP process development and flexible GMP-production facilities for early- to mid-stage clinical trials in cell therapy. The Cell Manufacturing Facility Geleen will offer clients the opportunity to support late stage clinical trials and commercial production for the industry. Taken together, PharmaCell offers a comprehensive contract manufacturing service package for cell therapy companies along the development pathway from translational work all the way to the commercial stage. With both TiGenix (ChondroCelect®) and Dendreon Corporation (for Provenge®) as partners, the company has two commercial cell therapy products under contract. In addition, work is ongoing on early stage clinical trials and translational projects.
Related: Cell therapy CMO
