Completing its second deal in less than a month, Greenwich, CT’s Aptuit has purchased preclinical formulation specialist Kuecept.
The buy adds to Aptuit’s drug development capabilities by bringing Kuecept’s strengths in pre-formulation testing and preclinical dose-vehicle screening. Based in London, Kuecept was founded in 2007 with an intention to focus efforts “on the provision of flexible, cost effective and responsive preclinical R&D services,” CEO Dr. Mark Saunders said in a statement.
The deal follows Aptuit’s move last month to purchase Switzerland’s Exquiron to grow its offerings in the areas of assay development and candidate nomination.
Kuecept has completed more than 600 projects on 250 new chemical entities in its expertise areas. It works to support oral and parenteral drug development, and more narrowly to assist “low solubility and poorly permeable compounds” through “complex bioavailability barriers.”
“The addition allows us to improve the transition of compounds from medicinal chemistry in discovery through to formal regulatory based Drug Product Development,” Aptuit CEO Jonathan Goldman said in a statement, adding that "we expect our customers to benefit from improved solubility solutions, reduced drug attrition and associated reductions in time and development costs.”
Unspecified in size, the deal marks a continued push by CROs worldwide into Europe through acquisitions. Following Aptuit’s deal for Exquiron in April, Southborough, MA’s Veristat purchased U.K.’s Spero Oncology to grow its offerings on the continent. Before that, Wuxi AppTec bought Germany’s Crelux as part of a similar effort.
- here’s the release