PCI Pharma sold to Swiss firm, promises growth
Based on Red Lion Rd. in Northeast Phila.
Partners Group, a $50 billion-asset private-investments firm based in Baar-Zug, Switzerland, says it has agreed to buy a controlling stake in Philadelphia-based drug outsourcing service PCI Pharma Services, from Frazier Healthcare Partners, Seattle.
"The plan is very much focused on growth," from higher sales and from acquisitions -- not just in PCI's main business of drug packaging for more than 300 drug, biotech, animal-health and cosmetics firms, but also in drug development and manufacturing, and clinical services, Joel Schwartz, managing director at Partners, told me in an email.
Partners and Frazier won't say what Partners paid, but Reuters and Fortune estimated PCI's sale value at around $1 billion. Sales totalled $475 million last year. PCI, based at its plant on Red Lion Rd. in Northeast Philadelphia, employs 642. PCI boss Bill Mitchell keeps his job. The company employs 2,800 at all its U.S. and European facilities.
Drugmakers are "migrating" toward outsourced packaging and manufacturing in a bid to cut costs, Partners Group managing director Remy Hauser said in a statement. Frazier will remain a minority owner of PCI, its general partner Dr. Nathan Avery said.
The company employed 430 in 2012, when Frazier bought the plant and another in Illinois from Catalent Pharma Solutions and renamed the group Packaging Coordinators Inc.
The following year, Frazier Partners combined the Philadelphia business with the former AndersenBrecon packaging, which it purchased for $308 million from AmerisourceBergen.