Pharma Capsules

Expansions

Millipore Debuts Website

Millipore (Billerica, MA) unveiled its new website (millipore.com). The site features a fast search engine and provides easy access to product information by application, product type, pathway diagrams, and research topic.

The new website features Learning Centers that help customers understand technical information. Its Service Center offers training, testing, and consulting expertise. In 2008, Millipore's website architects will unveil community-based platforms where scientists can interact and exchange ideas.

Lancaster Provides Online Access to Laboratory Data

Lancaster Laboratories (Lancaster, PA) launched its "LabAccess" web portal to offer pharmaceutical clients a secure online window to updated analytical information about their projects. The portal allows clients to view information such as analysts' notebooks, chromatograms, approved test results, certificates of analysis, raw data packages, and invoices.

The LabAccess portal is available 24 hours a day to Lancaster's clients who have valid email addresses in the company's laboratory information management system.

Azopharma Launches Two New Companies

Azopharma (Miramar, FL) launched two new companies to become part of its Product Development Group.

ApiCross, one of the new companies, will provide drug-delivery technologies to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Its services will include bioavailability enhancement, customized drug release, taste masking, and cytotoxic and highly potent compounds.

AvivoClin Clinical Services, the other new company, will serve as a clinical-pharmacology research unit that will accommodate short- and long-term clinical studies. The unit will offer first-in-human safety studies, drug–drug interaction studies, inpatient–outpatient trials, and proof-of-concept studies.

Awards

Vetter's New Ravensburg Facility Recognized

Vetter Pharma-Fertigung (Ravensburg, Germany), a producer of aseptically prefilled injection systems, won this year's European Outsourcing Award in the category of "Most Improved Process, Plant, or Facility." The prize recognized the company's new Ravensburg Vetter South facility, which began operating at the beginning of 2007.

Vetter Pharma-Fertigung's Ravensburg Vetter South facility.

The award is an important prize within the European pharmaceutical industry. Winners were announced during the International Contract Services Expo in Milan.

DSM Honored for Ligand Work

DSM Pharmaceutical Products (Parsippany, NJ) received the CPhI Innovation Award for its work on the use of "MonoPhos" ligands in asymmetric hydrogenations. The award recognizes outstanding work in developing research and technology, and is important to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.

The MonoPhos family of ligands improves the methodology used to prepare chiral molecules in high yield and with excellent selectivity. The DSM ligands can be produced in fewer steps, thus reducing production time. The company's method enables an efficient procedure, from ligand synthesis through commercial production, and decreases costs.

Acquisitions

Investors Buy Reliable Biopharmaceutical

Med Opportunity Partners (Greenwich, CT), a private equity firm, and Parish Capital Advisors (Chapel Hill, NC), an investment firm, acquired Reliable Biopharmaceutical Corp. (RBC, St. Louis, MO).

RBC develops and manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients and high-purity pharmaceutical-processing chemicals. The company's products are used in generic injectable drugs that treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, hypertension, and anxiety. RBC also manufactures critical purified downstream processing chemicals for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Michael Zaleski, RBC's president, will retain his position following the acquisition.

Reorganization

Atlas Sells Stake to IGP

Atlas Material Testing Technology (Chicago, IL) finalized an agreement to sell a majority stake in the company to Industrial Growth Partners (IGP, San Francisco, CA), a specialized investment firm focused on middle-market industrial manufacturing and manufacturing-services businesses. IGP's investment in Atlas will provide additional funds to support the company's growth.

IGP invests in leading niche manufacturers of highly engineered products. The group has experience in test and measurement markets and in facilitating ownership transitions within family-owned businesses.