Cardinal Health to Enhance Drug Development Services with Acquisition of Gala Biotech
01 October 2003
Cardinal Health, the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry, today announced it has agreed to acquire the remaining 42 percent of Gala Biotech for $15.5 million in cash as part of its ongoing strategy to grow and enhance its range of innovative drug development services.
Headquartered in Middleton, Wis., Gala Biotech has developed enabling technology for the production of pharmaceutical proteins. In September 2002, Cardinal Health entered into a strategic relationship with the Gala to fully leverage the start-up company"s proprietary gene insertion technology for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies. Now, by acquiring the remainder of Gala, Cardinal Health will be able to capitalize on the relationship for the benefit of biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers and, ultimately, the patient.
"The biopharmaceutical industry is constantly evolving - influenced, in part, by the rapidly growing therapeutic protein market," said Frank Leo, president of the Biotechnology and Sterile Life Sciences business of Cardinal Health. "Cardinal Health is well positioned to service this industry"s needs from gene to clinic. With Gala, we have created an integrated network of services for our biopharmaceutical customers - from supporting protein drug discovery to commercial manufacturing to packaging and commercialization services."
Gala's patent-pending Gene Product Expression (GPEx") gene insertion technology allows rapid creation of stable mammalian cell lines with high gene copy numbers for enhanced protein yields, permitting efficient pilot and large-scale production of monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutic proteins. Through insertion of multiple copies of the gene or genes into mammalian cells, Gala - in as little as half the time - can create stable cell lines that exhibit significantly higher levels of expression than those created using traditional methods.
Since its relationship with Gala was formed, Cardinal Health has invested $12 million to expand Gala"s operations and accelerate its business development efforts. Consequently, Gala has been able to significantly increase its team of skilled personnel and has outfitted its facility with the capacity for Phase I and Phase II cGMP biomanufacturing.
Gala will become part of the Biotechnology and Sterile Life Sciences business of Cardinal Health, which, when combined with the services offered by the company"s Pharmaceutical Technologies and Services segment, provides a seamless transition from protein drug development to commercial scale manufacturing. Biotechnology and Sterile Life Sciences also offers customers access to other Cardinal Health services, such as vial fill-finish, radio isotope conjugation, contract sales, logistics, specialty distribution of commercial products and medical education.
"Helping customers advance development and delivery of new and innovative therapies for patients is extremely rewarding and an added benefit to meeting our customers" protein needs through innovative technology," said Paul Weiss, Ph.D, president of Gala. "By joining Cardinal Health, our GPEx" technology has the potential to become the industry standard for creation of stable, high-expressing mammalian cell lines, addressing the critical need for superior speed and yield in biomanufacturing, and enabling the efficient production of biopharmaceuticals, particularly monoclonal antibodies."
