Avara Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., a contract provider of bulk drug formulation and manufacturing as well as primary and secondary packaging for solid dose drugs, has agreed to acquire AstraZeneca’s manufacturing facility in Avlon, Avonmouth, England.

Under the agreement, about 210 Avlon employees will remain employed at the site, and the plant will continue to manufacture AstraZeneca pharmaceutical products on a contract basis. AstraZeneca will continue to source a supply of products from the facility under the new ownership of Avara following the acquisition.

This is the second recent manufacturing-related acquisition by Avara. In August 2016, the company agreed to acquire Astellas’s wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary, Astellas Pharma Technologies (APT), Inc., located in Norman, Oklahoma. Under that agreement, APT employees will remain employed at the site, and the plant will continue to manufacture certain Astellas pharmaceutical products on a contract basis. Astellas will continue to source a supply of products from the facility under the oversight of Avara following the acquisition.

The AstraZeneca site will be the fifth manufacturing facility for Avara, which is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. The company has primary and secondary manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe.

Avara Pharmaceutical Services is a privately owned division of the American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) group of companies. AIAC, founded in 1995, consists of 60 manufacturing sites and more than 8,500 employees in 15 countries, with annual revenues of $1.2 billion. Avara is headed byi Tim Tyson, formerly chief executive officer (CEO) of Aptuit, where he now serves as chairman. From 2002-2008 he was at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, where he served as CEO. Prior to that, he was at GlaxoSmithKline for almost 15 years, initially in engineering, then sales and marketing and then as president of GSK's Global Manufacturing & Supply Division. He began his business career as a manufacturing manager at Proctor & Gamble.

Source: Avara Pharmaceutical Services