Our company began its journey back in 1995 with the management buyout of a solid dose facility in Stockholm, including a portfolio of around 20 well-known pharmaceutical products.

Lars Backsell and Thomas Eldered, who were both employees of the selling company, got together to form the company ‘Recip’. With Lars’ market and product development experience and Thomas’ in-depth knowledge of manufacturing and the facility, they complemented each other well from day one.

An innovative strategy

It took a few years for Recip to develop its current CDMO strategy. In 1995, the pharmaceutical industry was prospering from the many profitable products it had developed during the 1980s and cost saving measures, such as outsourcing, had not yet become a priority.

Recip was the first pharmaceutical company in the world to ISO 14001 certify its entire operations, and an extensive environmental policy gave the company a competitive edge and strong values. This environmental profile remains an important part of Recipharm today and our customers appreciate the benefits of working with a CDMO that guarantees high sustainability standards.

A CDMO is born

In 2001, the brand name Recipharm was established for the growing contract manufacturing part of Recip’s business. Six more facilities were acquired between 2001 and 2007 which added capacity, new advanced technologies, more diverse dosage forms and a growing network of customers.

In 2007, in line with the changing marketplace, the company decided to dedicate itself fully to the outsourcing business. The rights to products were sold, but its valuable development expertise and experience were retained in-house. Our position as a pure CDMO was established as we continued to develop the ‘Recipharm’ brand through further acquisitions.

A growth story

Since then Recipharm has grown quickly and in order to continue our growth strategy, the business was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in April 2014. Three new important acquisitions were made in the same year. Milano based Corvette Pharmaceutical Services Group was acquired from LBO Italia Investimenti, Portuguese CMDO Lusomedicamenta Sociedade Técnica Farmacêutica S.A was added to the Group and Recipharm acquired a Flamel Technologies development facility in Pessac, France.

2015 saw the acquisition of Uppsala based OnTarget Chemistry, strengthening our development services offering. By the end of 2015, a facility from Alcon in France was acquired, adding the important blow-fill-seal technology to Recipharm`s services offering. In October 2015, Recipharm announced its intention to acquire a majority stake in Indian CMO Nitin Lifesciences, creating a platform for emerging markets. The deal was finalised in April 2016, and Recipharm acquired the remaining shares in Nitin Lifesciences Limited in January 2018.

In March 2016, Recipharm acquired the Italian based CDMO Mitim to further develop its offering within beta lactams. In April 2016, Recipharm announced the strategic acquisitions of Kemwell`s CDMO businesses in the US, Sweden and in India creating a leading global CDMO. The acquisition of the US and Swedish operations was finalised in May, and the acquisition of the Indian operations was finalised in February 2017.

In December 2017, Recipharm completed the acquisition of the Roche manufacturing facility in Leganés, Spain, signing a long-term agreement with a major new customer.

In October 2018, Recipharm completed the acquisition of the Sanofi’s inhalation contract manufacturing business including a manufacturing facility located in Holmes Chapel, UK.

In February 2020, Recipharm completed its largest acquisition to date. The acquisition of the UK listed company Consort Medical made Recipharm into one of the largest CDMOs in the world in terms of revenue. The acquisition complements Recipharm’s business and presents opportunities to develop its customer offering – such as in device development and manufacturing.

Today, Recipharm remains headquartered in Sweden and now includes around 30 manufacturing and development facilities in Europe, India, Israel and North America. The company is one of the oldest and most experienced CDMOs in the world and we are proud of what we have achieved. In the interests of all our stakeholders – long may this success continue.

How would you describe Recipharm? - Video