Aptuit Will Acquire Evotec Chemical Business

Continuing its buildup of a pharmaceutical development services business, Aptuit has agreed to acquire Evotec's chemical and pharmaceutical development operations for $64 million.

The business, which is expected to generate sales of $40 million this year, includes an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) facility in Oxford, England, and a plant in Glasgow, Scotland, where vials of injectable drugs are filled and finished.

Aptuit says the new facilities complement API plants in Harrisonville and Kansas City, Mo., that it acquired last September from EaglePicher. The firm is also building an API facility in India in a joint venture with Laurus Labs.

Aptuit was formed in July 2005 by Michael A. Griffith, former head of the pharmaceutical chemistry firm ChiRex, to acquire three drug services businesses from Quintiles Transnational. Backed by the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, its most recent acquisition, in October, was of the solid-state chemistry firm SSCI.

Evotec, for its part, says it is selling the business to focus on its drug discovery operations. Evotec continues to offer high-throughput screening and medicinal chemistry services to pharmaceutical industry customers.