Santen SA and NextPharma have announced that Santen’s Tampere manufacturing facility and related operations will be acquired by NextPharma, a leading European pharmaceutical Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisation (CDMO).

The acquisition is expected to be completed in the summer of 2019. The companies are entering into a strategic partnership that will see NextPharma take over production of Santen products in the Tampere facility.

NextPharma will be taking over the site fully staffed, with 181 employees involved in manufacturing and its support functions, including quality control, quality assurance, IT and administration, transferring to NextPharma.

A large number of Santen employees in Finland not necessarily linked to Manufacturing or its functions, such as Sales and Marketing, R&D, Regulatory, Quality Assurance, Pharmacovigilance, Human Resources, IT and Administration will not be affected by the acquisition and those roles will continue being part of Santen.

Santen has long been the market leader in Japan for prescription ophthalmic pharmaceuticals and is now a leader in the sector in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region.