Indena, an Italian company that provides identification, development and production of active principles derived from plants—for use in the pharmaceutical, health-food and personal care industries—is selling its cosmetics business to Givaudan to focus on core markets, including the pharma side of its operations.
 
Within the pharma business, Indena recently expanded its CDMO offering to encompass new services. In particular, a kilolab to handle semisynthetic and total synthetic APIs that require high containment (OEL of 20 ng/m3), a new multipurpose GMP pilot plant, a multipurpose fermentation suite and large-and-mid size spray dryers working with organic solvents.
 
“We are in favor of this transaction, as it enables Indena to focus on its core markets, pharmaceuticals and health-food, while continuing to support the cosmetic ingredients business which has been a valuable part of our portfolio,” said Daniele Giavini, managing director, Indena.
 
Backed up by almost a century of botanical experience, Indena holds more than 100 primary patents, has published more than 1000 scientific studies and co-operates with the world’s most prestigious universities and private research institutions.

Indena employs about 800 staff, investing a significant amount of its annual turnover in research. Headquartered in Milan, Indena has 4 production sites and 5 international branches throughout the world and manages sales in more than 80 countries. The company’s experts communicate and interact constantly with the major international regulatory authorities and cooperate on the update of all the main pharmacopoeias.

The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2020.