Piramal Pharma Limited (PPL) has acquired a 27.78 per cent stake in Yapan Bio for a consideration of Rs 101.77 crore. This will augment the capabilities of its Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) business, Piramal Pharma Solutions (PPS). As PPS continues to strengthen its capabilities and position itself as a leading CDMO, this acquisition marks a significant addition to PPS’ global capabilities in the development and manufacturing of large molecules for human clinical trials.

 Yapan Bio provides process development, scale-up, and cGMP compliant manufacturing of vaccines and biologics/bio-therapeutics, including high containment product classes (up to BSL-2+), recombinant vaccines, RNA/DNA vaccines, gene therapies, monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic proteins, and other complex biologics. Yapan’s FY21 turnover was Rs 12.4 cr. The company has already earned revenues of Rs 11.8 cr for H1FY22 and is poised for fast growth in response to strong market demand.

The investment in Yapan Bio allows PPS to broaden its service offerings in the fast-growing biologics CDMO space. Biologics capabilities can be synergistic with the company's anti-body drug conjugation capabilities; specifically, for customers who prefer the speed and simplicity benefits of an integrated program that involves development, manufacturing, conjugation, and fill finish. PPS currently offers integrated payload, conjugation, fill finish services, and the addition of anti-body capabilities enhances that offering.

Nandini Piramal, Chairperson, Piramal Pharma said, “The expertise found at Yapan will help Piramal provide existing customers with wider capabilities for developing and manufacturing large molecules. This investment further supports our growth strategy for Piramal Pharma.”

Peter DeYoung, CEO, Pharma Solutions, Piramal Pharma said, “During the past decade, biologics and their accompanying development services are the fastest growing segments of the CDMO market. This investment, coupled with the market-leading capabilities of our Grangemouth, UK site in antibody drug conjugations and our sterile fill/finish capabilities in Lexington, USA, demonstrates our commitment to growing our service offerings in the large molecule CDMO space.”

Atin Tomar and Nirav Desai, CEO and COO of Yapan said, “We are very excited about this transaction and are confident that PPS is the ideal partner to take the business through its next phase of growth. Yapan’s employees and customers, who are the core stakeholders of our business, will most assuredly benefit from PPS’ expertise in providing integrated services on a global scale.”

In today’s market, many pharma innovator companies are looking for CDMOs to support their biologics development and manufacturing requirements. PPS expects that adding these capabilities and expertise will enable the company to further enhance its offerings in this attractive, fast-track growth sector.