Cambrex has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Avista Pharma Solutions for roughly $252 million. Avista is a portfolio company of Ampersand Capital Partners. With this acquisition, Cambrex will enter the large and growing market for early stage small molecule development and testing services. Avista offers a broad suite of services ranging from API and drug product development and cGMP manufacturing to stand-alone analytical, microbiology testing and solid state sciences.
 
“We are excited to announce our acquisition of Avista, which further rounds out our small molecule service offering by adding a full complement of early stage development capabilities for both API and finished dosage form as well as comprehensive analytical testing services,” said Steve Klosk, president and chief executive officer, Cambrex. “The addition of Avista further underscores our commitment to providing the broadest possible range of world class services to our global customer base. Like the Halo transaction in September, this acquisition opens up an exciting new segment of the market for Cambrex and brings a large number of new customer relationships to Cambrex. These new relationships will provide cross selling opportunities for Cambrex’s API and finished dosage form services, and will significantly increase the funnel of molecules that may advance to commercial status, where Cambrex has always excelled.”
 
Pat Walsh, chief executive officer, Avista Pharma, said, “This transaction affirms the reputation that our dedicated employee base has established as a trusted early stage CDMO with a track record of world class customer service, technical expertise and strong growth. We are very excited to be joining the Cambrex team and believe the growth synergies as a result of this combination will be significant.”
 
Avista operates four facilities located in Durham, NC, Longmont, CO, Agawam, MA and Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, comprising over 200,000 square feet of space. Avista has worked on more than 200 small molecules for approximately 180 customers so far in 2018, providing some combination of analytical testing, early stage process chemistry, formulation development, manufacturing, or solid state chemistry services. Including the microbiological testing business, Avista has over 400 active customers, and is expected to generate approximately $65 million in annual revenue in 2018. Avista’s 330 person workforce will join Cambrex’s 1,700 employees across the United States and Europe.