Quotient, buoyed by Covid-19 work, buys Arcinova in effort to build end-to-end CDMO brand – Endpoints News

Flush with cash from Covid-19 work, con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers are hav­ing their own M&A mi­ni-boom. Now, a UK-based man­u­fac­tur­ing ser­vices firm is snag­ging an­oth­er com­pa­ny head­quar­ter on the Isles, look­ing to set up an end-to-end of­fer­ing for cus­tomers.

Mark Egerton

Not­ting­ham drug de­vel­op­er and man­u­fac­tur­ing ac­cel­er­a­tor Quo­tient an­nounced plans this week to buy Ar­ci­no­va, an­oth­er con­tract de­vel­op­er with over four decades in the in­dus­try.

Quo­tient said the move will fur­ther ex­pand the com­pa­ny’s ser­vice port­fo­lio by in­te­grat­ing drug sub­stance, prod­uct and test­ing abil­i­ties un­der the same um­brel­la, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease. This, CEO Mark Egerton said, will fur­ther im­prove the com­pa­ny’s one-year drug de­vel­op­ment time­line sav­ings al­ready avail­able through Quo­tient’s pri­ma­ry tech­nol­o­gy, Trans­la­tion­al Phar­ma­ceu­tics.

“I’d like to con­grat­u­late the Ar­ci­no­va team on build­ing an ex­cit­ing busi­ness, and I am thrilled to be join­ing forces,” he said in a state­ment. “Both busi­ness­es are sim­i­lar in cul­ture and as­pire to help cus­tomers ac­cel­er­ate mol­e­cules from can­di­date se­lec­tion through de­vel­op­ment and on to com­mer­cial launch.”

Quo­tient has been buoyed in re­cent months by CD­MO work in Covid-19 ther­a­peu­tics, most no­tably an Au­gust part­ner­ship with ANA Ther­a­peu­tics. The biotech in De­cem­ber was bought by Neu­roBo, and ANA001 (or niclosamide cap­sules), re­mains in a clin­i­cal tri­al for pos­si­ble de­vel­op­ment as a treat­ment for the res­pi­ra­to­ry virus.

Ian Shott

Ar­ci­no­va’s 160 em­ploy­ees will now join the fold at Quo­tient, which Ar­ci­no­va ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Ian Shott said aligns well with the goals the com­pa­ny has had since its in­cep­tion.

“We set out to build a unique or­ga­ni­za­tion that ac­cel­er­ates the de­vel­op­ment of new med­i­cines for pa­tients in need,” Schott said. “We are de­light­ed to move on to the next stage with Quo­tient as the per­fect part­ner for Ar­ci­no­va.”

Fi­nan­cial terms of the sale weren’t dis­closed, but as part of the ac­qui­si­tion, Ar­ci­no­va’s mi­nor­i­ty eq­ui­ty part­ner BGF will leave the busi­ness.