Japanese group AGC offers €240m bid for Italian biotech company Molmed

Japanese conglomerate AGC has offered a takeover bid of €240 million to acquire 100% of Italian biotech company cum contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Molecular Medicine (Molmed), valuing the latter at €0.518 per share.

The clinical-stage Italian biotech company is engaged in research, development, manufacturing and also clinical validation of gene and cell therapies. In addition to that, Molmed provides GMP services for the development and manufacturing of gene and cell therapies for third parties and/or in partnership at its authorized facilities.

AGC’s bid is said to have the backing of Fininvest, the largest shareholder in Molmed with a stake of 23.13%.

According to the Japanese conglomerate, gene and cell therapy is an innovative therapeutic method and nearly 1000 clinical trials are in progress across the world, and the market is likely to expand at a rapid rate.

AGC further stated that Molmed is strong, particularly in vectors and cells manufacturing, which is supported by its strong production platform. The Italian biotech company also manufactures engineered cells and viral vectors for various firms ranging from large biopharmaceuticals to biotech companies.

Japanese group AGC proposes to acquire Italian biotech company Molmed. Image courtesy of OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

The Japanese conglomerate by acquiring Molmed will foray into the innovative gene and cell therapy field to grow its CDMO offering to the region where there is a strong imbalance between demand and supply of specific skills and production capacity across the world, and for better serving the pharmaceutical firms, its patients and society.

The Japanese group stated: “Under its AGC plus management policy, the AGC Group has made a commitment to position its life-sciences related business, including the biopharmaceutical CDMO business, as one of its strategic initiatives, aiming at sales above the 100-billion-yen range by 2025. To date, AGC has actively invested in its small molecule pharmaceutical CDMO business and its biopharmaceutical CDMO business, and has established a stable presence in the industry.”