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PCI Services Acquires U.K. Pharmaceutical Packaging Center from AstraZeneca
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- PCI Services, a subsidiary of Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH) and a leading provider of contract packaging services in health care, announced today it has acquired AstraZeneca's pharmaceutical packaging center in Corby, U.K. As part of the transaction, AstraZeneca and PCI also entered into a five-year agreement under which AstraZeneca will purchase packaging services from PCI. Financial terms were not disclosed.
PCI Services provides contract-packaging services to drug and medical- device companies throughout the world. The new U.K. facility will give PCI greater capacity to serve clients with manufacturing operations in Europe. PCI operates 15 contract-services centers in the United States, Puerto Rico and Europe, including three in the United Kingdom and one in Germany.
The 180,000 square-foot (18,000 square-meter) AstraZeneca facility employs about 100 people and has room to expand substantially to help sustain PCI's growth. The highly automated facility was built in 1992 and sits on a 17-acre site. It is used currently to package a range of AstraZeneca's products, including Losec(R) (Prilosec(R) in North America), the leading treatment for gastrointestinal disorders.
"This agreement will serve to strengthen a longstanding working partnership between PCI and AstraZeneca," said Alan Waterhouse, president of PCI Services. "We are very pleased to have come to this agreement and look forward to this opportunity to expand our packaging capacity in Europe, which is one of the fastest growing regions worldwide for pharmaceutical services. I'd like to personally welcome our new team members in Corby to PCI Services and to Cardinal Health."
The acquisition underscores Cardinal Health's recent efforts to expand internationally. PCI Services, for example, recently completed a 100,000 square-foot (10,000 square-meter) addition to its pharmaceutical-packaging center in Germany, effectively doubling its size.
The purchase of the AstraZeneca facility expands Cardinal Health's integrated service offering for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Cardinal Health can help its clients formulate, develop, produce, package, launch, distribute and market products.
PCI Services is the world's only fully integrated provider of packaging and related services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device industries. The company, which is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, offers blister packaging, bottle-filling and pouch packaging, thermo-forming, custom hand assembly, liquid and powder packaging, hospital unit dose packaging, specialized packaging for clinical trials, folding cartons, printed inserts/outserts, labels and promotional printing, tamper-evident and child- resistant packaging, and analytical-testing services for pharmaceuticals and biotechnology products.
Cardinal Health, Inc. ( http://www.cardinal.com ) is a leading provider of products and services supporting the health-care industry. Cardinal Health companies develop, manufacture, package and market products for patient care; develop drug-delivery technologies; distribute pharmaceuticals, medical- surgical and laboratory supplies; and offer consulting and other services that improve quality and efficiency in health care. The company employs more than 43,000 people on five continents and produces annual revenues of more than $30 billion.
Except for historical information, all other information provided in this news release consists of "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These "forward-looking statements" are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated, or implied. The most significant of these risks and uncertainties are discussed or identified in Cardinal Health's public filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and include (but are not limited to) the costs and difficulties related to the integration of acquired businesses, effect of any changes in customer and supplier relationships and customer purchasing patterns, changes in the distribution outsourcing pattern for pharmaceutical products and/or services, costs and other effects of governmental regulation and legal and administrative proceedings and taxes, general consumer perception of health-related concerns and of general economic conditions such as changes in interest rates and the performance of the financial markets, changes in competition and pricing environments, and general market and industry conditions. Cardinal Health undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.
SOURCE Cardinal Health, Inc.
CONTACT: Investors, Stephen T. Fischbach, 614-757-7067, or Media, Geoffrey D. Fenton, 614-757-7871, both of Cardinal Health, Inc./
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