Aptuit, Laurus Form New Service Co. in India

Aptuit, Inc. and Laurus Labs Ltd. have formed a new contract drug development company, Aptuit Laurus, which will combine Aptuit’s global offerings in drug development with Laurus’ R&D and manufacturing expertise and new state-of-the-art facilities in India. The combined company will provide pharmaceutical companies with integrated services, technologies and manufacturing capabilities across the entire drug development cycle.

The new company will be based at Laurus’ new 160,000-sq.-ft. R&D facility in Hyderabad, which employs more than 200 scientific personnel, and additional facilities in Vishakhapatnam and Bangalore. Aptuit Laurus will initially provide services to clients in early-stage drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, lead optimization, process development, scale-up and process optimization, safety and hazard assessment, formulation development and analytical chemistry. These services will be provided through Laurus’ large-scale manufacturing plant, which is currently under construction in Vishakhapatnam and Aptuit’s existing informatics development and support group of 100 employees in Bangalore.

Aptuit will invest approximately $100 million during the next four years to expand Aptuit Laurus’ development, manufacturing and informatics capabilities with the addition of a complete suite of development services including: medicinal chemistry, preclinical, solid-state chemistry, consulting, clinical packaging and logistics, Phase I/IIa research and large-scale dosage form manufacturing.

“Laurus Labs shares our strategic vision to build an end-to-end drug development services partner with high service levels and an emphasis on technology, and their offerings align neatly with ours,” said Michael A. Griffith, founder and chief executive officer of Aptuit. “It’s an excellent cultural fit, and provides a new set of choices for our 600 pharmaceutical company clients. We are committed to integrating all of our major systems including sales, contracts, IT, quality, project management and finance to present one face to our global customer base.”

“Aptuit is the ideal strategic partner for Laurus,” said Dr. Satyanarayana Chava, founder and chief executive officer of Laurus Labs. “Our strengths are complementary, and we are very focused on the value and efficiencies to be gained for our customers in having access to a full range of research, development and manufacturing capabilities and services on a truly global scale. ” Dr. Satyanarayana will serve as chief executive officer of Aptuit Laurus. He brings more than 20 years of industry experience to the partnership, including his most recent role as chief operating officer of Matrix Laboratories Ltd., where he played a key role in transforming that company into one of the major pharmaceutical companies in India. Dr. Satyanarayana founded Laurus with two colleagues in 2005.