Aptuit has signed an agreement to acquire SSCI, Inc. The acquisition will enable Aptuit to leverage SSCI’s expertise in solid-state pharmaceutical product development to broaden its service offering for customers. As part of the agreement, Aptuit will acquire SSCI’s facilities in West Lafayette, IN, Atlanta, GA, Oxford, UK, and retain SSCI’s 100 employees. SSCI will continue to operate under the SSCI brand for a period of time, to allow for a seamless transition between the two companies’ service offerings. The acquisition is expected to close within 30 days. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“SSCI is the clear leader in the field of analytical services and solid-state chemistry and crystallization,” stated Michael A. Griffith, chief executive officer of Aptuit. “By integrating their service offering with our existing analytic and API development capabilities, we can offer customers a more robust and seamless offering to move product candidates toward the clinic and the marketplace. SSCI’s strength in polymorph, salt, cocrystal, amorphous material, and analytical research have helped customers improve development outcomes and build sound intellectual property positions along the way.”

SSCI’s chief executive officer, Sally Byrn, who was named vice president, physical and analytical chemistry at Aptuit, stated, “Together SSCI and Aptuit are in a great position to reengineer the drug development process, bringing our customers unprecedented speed to market while helping to achieve the FDA mandate of Quality by Design.”

Also, several members of the SSCI management team have been named to leadership positions within Aptuit: Richard Ferguson, SSCI’s chief financial officer has been named vice president, treasurer; David Bertolino will become senior director, human resources; and Daniel Pannell will become senior director, physical and analytical chemistry.

With the acquisition, Aptuit will now be able to offer customers: control of the solid form throughout the development process; state-of-the-art analytical services, particularly solids; and SSCI’s cGMP analytical services. SSCI and Aptuit are also adding analytical services for protein and peptide drugs. These services include: conventional analyses as well as X-ray powder diffraction, dynamic light scattering, characterization, stability, and formulation studies.