Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd. (SIX: BSLN) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to divest its Chinese research and development (R&D) subsidiary Basilea Pharmaceutica China Ltd. (“BPC”), by selling BPC’s parent company BPh Investitionen Ltd. to the U.S.-based custom manufacturing organization PHT International Inc. (“PHT”).
This will increase flexibility in sourcing R&D services in the future. All 72 employees and the facilities will be transferred to PHT. The initial payment is USD 2.5 million, which will be due upon closing of the transaction, which is expected in the second quarter of 2021 subject to customary closing conditions. Basilea is entitled to additional payments of USD 3.8 million over the course of the next three years, for a total purchase price of USD 6.3 million.
David Veitch, Chief Executive Officer of Basilea, said: “We are very pleased with this transaction, which will increase our flexibility in sourcing external R&D services for our growing portfolio, while optimizing our future cost structure. Importantly, PHT has committed to maintaining R&D services through the existing site in China to Basilea. This ensures continued seamless support for our ongoing R&D projects and allows us to continue to benefit from the expertise that we have built in our Chinese organization over the course of the last two decades.”
Dr. Laurenz Kellenberger, Basilea’s Chief Scientific Officer and Chairman of BPC, added: “Since we founded BPC in 2002, our Chinese colleagues have been a great support for our R&D projects and I would like to thank them for their valuable contributions. We are convinced that their expertise will be even better leveraged within a structure that is entirely focused on providing contract research, development and manufacturing services such as PHT. We wish them all the best for the future and are looking forward to continue working with them on our projects.”