Cardinal Health has completed the sale of its Pharmaceutical Technologies and Services (PTS) segment to The Blackstone Group for approximately $3.3 billion. Cardinal Health announced in November of last year that it planned to divest PTS to focus resources on its four remaining segments serving healthcare provider customers.

"We are pleased to begin this new chapter in our history," said John Lowry, chief executive officer of PTS. "We have a long heritage of providing customers with creative solutions and consistent service, and we expect to create even more value for our customers in the future with Blackstone as our partner."

Commenting on the acquisition, Chinh Chu, senior managing director of The Blackstone Group, said, "We believe the pharmaceutical outsourcing sector is in its early stages of growth as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies of all sizes will increasingly rely on third parties for the development, manufacture, and packaging of pharmaceutical and other products. Blackstone is pleased to be partnering with the existing PTS management team, led by John Lowry, who will be significant investors in PTS alongside Blackstone."