Cooperation between Lactel and Evonik

Evonik has signed an agree­ment to acquire the LACTEL® busi­ness of biodegrad­able poly­mers from DURECT Cor­po­ra­tion for USD 15m. The trans­ac­tion is expect­ed to close by Q1 2021 pend­ing the sat­is­fac­tion of cer­tain cus­tom­ary clos­ing con­di­tions. An offer will be extend­ed to each of the 15 employ­ees locat­ed in Birm­ing­ham, Alabama.
“This acqui­si­tion  will strength­en both our inno­va­tion growth field Health­care Solu­tions and Evonik’s posi­tion as a glob­al­ly lead­ing CDMO for drug deliv­ery solu­tions”, says Johann-Cas­par Gam­melin, Head of the Nutri­tion & Care Divi­sion of Evonik. It marks a con­se­quen­tial step in the growth agen­da of the life-sci­ence divi­sion Nutri­tion & Care. The brand will ben­e­fit from fast-grow­ing mar­kets such as advanced drug deliv­ery, bio­ma­te­ri­als for tis­sue engi­neer­ing, and the 3D print­ing of implantable med­ical devices.
“It has been a plea­sure work­ing with this high­ly moti­vat­ed and tal­ent­ed  team. We have con­fi­dence that Evonik will apply its resources and com­mit­ment to excel­lence to enable their prod­uct line and sup­port­ing team mem­bers to thrive,” says James E. Brown, Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer. With their glob­al reach, exist­ing and new cus­tomers will ben­e­fit from tap­ping into Health Care’s twelve glob­al lab­o­ra­to­ries staffed with for­mu­la­tion, appli­ca­tion and reg­u­la­to­ry experts to assist in bring­ing their prod­ucts faster to the market.
“This acqui­si­tion will strength­en our posi­tion as a pre­ferred devel­op­ment part­ner and solu­tions provider for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and med­ical device cus­tomers,” says Thomas Rier­meier, Head of the Health Care busi­ness line. “By wel­com­ing the com­pa­ny and mem­bers of their team into the Evonik fam­i­ly, we look for­ward to pro­vid­ing cus­tomers with even greater plat­form ver­sa­til­i­ty as well as oth­er val­ue-adding services.”