Related articles

Related multimedia

Aspen Pharmacare CEO Stephen Saad. Picture: FINANCIAL MAIL

BUSINESS DAY TV: Aspen’s acquisitions give it strong global positions in niche areas, says CEO

In this article

ASPEN Pharmacare acquired the intellectual property rights for a recently approved medication for female cancers and hormonal imbalances from US-based McGuff Pharmaceuticals for an undisclosed amount.

Aspen said it already manufactured the active ingredient for the drug, known as Hydroxyprogesterone Caproate.

The treatment, which would take the form of an injection, was expected to be launched in the US in the next year, Aspen said on Tuesday.

With this transaction, the local pharmaceutical giant would gain control of the finished product and its distribution process, which according to Sasfin Securities analyst Alec Abraham is a strategy the group has implemented for years.

In 2013, Aspen announced that it had entered into an agreement to buy the rights to an injectable anticoagulant treatment for $142.3m.

In the same year, the company acquired the manufacturing unit from Merck and finalised its £700m acquisition of GlaxoSmithKline’s thrombosis drugs and an associated manufacturing site in France.

"Aspen is trying to get into complex drugs that require specialist manufacturing facilities, (thus) providing good barriers to entry," Mr Abrahams said.

"Strategically, this is a good deal," he said of the McGuff transaction, as securing control from the sourcing of the ingredients to the final distribution of the product would provide huge costs savings.

Aspen distributes drugs in more than 150 countries, but its presence in the US is small.

This year, there will be about 1.65-million new cancer cases diagnosed in the US, according to estimates from the American Cancer Society.