Swedish contract drugmaker Recipharm signed a deal with neighboring LobSor Pharmaceuticals to manufacture the company's new treatment for Parkinson's disease, all the while discussing a partnership with Novartis ($NVS) in the field of eye care.
With LobSor, Recipharm is on board to produce Lecigon for three years, manufacturing the Parkinson's drug and receiving a cut of its sales in exchange for financial support. The two companies worked together during the development process, and Recipharm is staying on hand to see Lecigon's way onto market, management said.
At the same time, Recipharm is in the midst of negotiations with Novartis' Alcon business, reaching an agreement in principal to manufacture a range of eye care products. Under the framework of the deal, Recipharm will also acquire a French manufacturing site from Alcon, bringing aboard its 260 employees. The company expects to announce final terms later this year when the pact is final.
Meanwhile, Recipharm has been rapidly expanding since going public in 2014, spending more than $300 million in three buyouts designed to bolster its capacity across Europe. The company has looked to a wide range of deals to broaden its business, sharing the risk of development with its partners and launching joint ventures to move products forward and create new revenue opportunities.
For drugmakers taking the plunge on late-stage development and commercialization, Recipharm's willingness to strike nontraditional deals makes it an irreplaceable partner, LobSor Managing Director Roger Bolsöy said.
"It is well known that pharmaceutical development is costly and can be cumbersome for a small company," Bolsöy said in a statement. "... I am impressed that such a large organization as Recipharm has been able to show such entrepreneurial spirit and flexibility to facilitate the development of a company from the early stages through to commercialization."
- read the LobSor statement (PDF)
- here's the Alcon release (PDF)