DPT, Confab To Combine Sales, Marketing

DPT Laboratories and Confab will combine sales and marketing operations. Paul Johnson, group president and chief operating officer, will lead the combined firm. The management teams for both companies will remain in place, with Confab development and manufacturing continuing to operate under the direction of president and general manager Nathalie Brisson. DPT is based in San Antonio, TX, while Confab is based in Saint-Hubert, Quebec.

Both DPT and Confab are owned by Renaissance Acquisition Holdings, LLC, a portfolio company of RoundTable Healthcare Partners, and represent its CDMO holdings. The integration is effective immediately. DPT did not release expected revenues for the component companies. No layoffs are planned or expected as part of the integration, according to a spokesman from DPT.

We interviewed Pierre Frechette, president and chief executive officer of Renaissance’s Pharma group, in our September 2012 issue. In that conversation, Mr. Frechette commented, “There are basic synergies between [DPT and Confab]. The cross-selling opportunity is huge. When we look at DPT and Confab, one of the the biggest things to jump out is that the dosage form capabilities and scale are highly complementary. Confab offers development and manufacturing of complex solid dosage forms. They have a lot of specialized equipment in that area. DPT doesn’t have that. On the other side, DPT has access to steriles, semisolids and liquids. Confab has semisolids and liquids, too, but only for small-batch/small-volume products, while DPT has the scale for large volumes. For customers, this will provide a much better offering. Overall, there was almost zero customer overlap. That’s a great situation. All the existing DPT customers today who might have a solid oral dosage form to outsource now have a natural bridge to a provider. And that’ll go the other way, with Confab leads that could feed into DPT’s services. It’s very complementary.”

The integration includes a re-branding and new logo for Confab, identifying it as a DPT company. A primary focus of the integration is for DPT’s established sales and marketing team to introduce Confab’s specialized expertise in complex solid, semisolid and liquid dosage forms to new pharmaceutical industry clients, especially in the U.S. market.

Confab has 350 employees and a 140,000-sq.-ft., cGMP-compliant turnkey facility, which is licensed by the Health Canada Therapeutic Products Directorate, as well as the FDA. DPT, which has a strong business in semisolids and liquids, has more than 1,200 employees and R&D and manufacturing facilities in San Antonio and Lakewood, NJ, where it is expanding its presence in the sterile and specialty products.

“Confab is one of the most-respected pharmaceutical outsourcing organizations in Canada, with more than 30 years’ experience in manufacturing, packaging and analyzing a wide range of projects for both large and small pharmaceutical companies,” said Mr. Johnson. “The integration will provide our sales team with complimentary manufacturing capabilities and a broader range of services to offer to our customers. At the same time, the increased marketing support will leverage the continued investment Confab has made in infrastructure and capabilities, paying dividends in new client development and increased sales growth.”

“DPT’s sales and marketing team has a proven track record for building client relationships and driving growth,” said Ms. Brisson. “For our team at Confab, this will mean broader recognition of our capabilities and services, access to new markets and increased opportunities for growth.”