Strides Pharma Science on Monday declared that it had entered a binding contract to sell the biologics Unit-3 manufacturing facility of its associate company Stelis Biopharma (SBL) to Syngene International on a slump sale basis for a gross value of Rs 702 crore.

Syngene is the research arm of Biocon. It posted operations revenue of Rs 3,193 crore, 23% up in FY23. 

The multi-modal manufacturing facility is located at Bommasandra Industrial Area in Bengaluru. That was initially built to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines but will now be repurposed to manufacture monoclonal antibodies. 

Syngene said its plans to invest Rs 100 crore to repurpose and revalidate the facility. Upon the completion of the transaction, the factory will add 20,000 litres of installed biologics drug substance manufacturing capacity for Syngene, with a potential for further expansion of up to 20,000 litres. 

In a statement by Jonathan Hunt, Syngene’s managing director and CEO, “This acquisition strengthens our growing position as a leading biologics contract development and manufacturing service provider and adds drug substance capacity and a drug product capability years earlier than our internal capex programme. We expect this facility to be operational in 2024, following completion of a programme of facility upgrades and re-validation,”

Shares of Syngene are trading 2.1% higher at Rs 756.50 a piece, while those of Strides Pharma are trading 5.4% lower at Rs 457.50 apiece. Shares of Strides have recovered 70% from their 52-week low of Rs 268.4 apiece, while those of Syngene are up 41% from their 52-week low.