Bora Pharmaceuticals Took Over Impax Laboratories, Inc. -- Explosive Business Growth can be Expected (Report by NOWNEWS)

       Bora Pharmaceuticals, invested in by TAYA Venture Capital Co., Ltd., announced in February 2018 that it had acquired a 100% stake in Impax Laboratories, Inc., a subordinate of Nasdaq, an American public company, at US$ 18.5 million, or about NT$ 555 million, and after a month of handover procedures, the takeover was completed today (6th). Sheng, Pao-Hsi, the Chairman of Bora Pharmaceuticals, stated that with this merger and acquisition, Bora Pharmaceuticals can immediately advance to become one of the top five pharmaceutical factories with the largest capacity in producing medicine for oral use. In the future, the company will move to become Taiwan's largest pharmaceutical OEM exporting to the U.S. It aspires to obtain a status equivalent to that of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, but in the pharmaceutical market.
       Bora Pharmaceuticals pointed out that its original plan was to expand its pharmaceutical factory in Tainan for it to comply with U.S. FDA's regulations, so that new preparations and new drugs developed by Bora can be sold in the U.S. and European countries. However, to start from scratch, which includes factory building and passing the U.S. FDA's factory inspection requires at least 4 to 5 years and costs at least 600-800 million dollars. Also, it is difficult to recruit personnel, conduct training, and set up software and hardware systems that meet FDA requirements. It took 5 years and $1.6 billion for a company of the same trade to build a factory and have it pass all the inspections.
       Yet this time, Bora spent less than 1 year and only $555 million to obtain a pharmaceutical factory of equal specifications. This helps Bora in improving the technology and clinical research to develop pharmaceutical preparations for CNS diseases, which will be very beneficial for business growth and in expanding its business horizons.
       Bora's Chairman Sheng Bao-Xi pointed out that with this merger and acquisition, Bora Pharmaceuticals can immediately advance to become one of the top five pharmaceutical factories with the largest capacity in producing medicine for oral use. In the future, the company will move to become Taiwan's largest pharmaceutical OEM exporting to the U.S. It aspires to obtain a status equivalent to that of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, but in the pharmaceutical market. Biotechnological companies without any manufacturing plants can ask Impax to produce pharmaceuticals they plan to export, which would in turn facilitate Taiwan's export of biotechnological products to the U.S. and European countries, achieving mutual growth and increasing the production value of the biotechnological industry's exports.
       According to the 2017 export good value statistics published by the Customs Administration of the Ministry of Finance, Taiwan's exports of pharmaceuticals totaled around $15.7 billion, of which Impax accounted for 11%, and Impax's annual capacity of medication for oral use is at around 2 billion tablets. In Taiwan, Impax is the only professional pharmaceutical company exporting all manufactured drugs to the U.S., and has passed the U.S. FDA's factory inspections.
       According to statistics, ever since the FDA started encouraging generic drugs' entrance into the market through policies in 2017, roughly 700 generic drugs have been approved. In addition, the U.S. has recently seen increasing specialization of work in drug manufacturing, which has further spurred the growth of the pharmaceutical OEM market. Therefore, for a generic drug to enter the American market, an OEM that has passed FDA factory inspections can be a key link.
       Of the total production value of Taiwan's exports to the U.S., Impax Laboratories, Inc. currently accounts for 49%, which demonstrates how important Impax is in Taiwan's pharmaceutical industry and its real value. It is anticipated that, after merging with Impax, Bora, which is based in Taiwan, will be able to channel resources via parallel or vertical integration, giving the Group's production line a more diverse space to dispatch and develop, so that it will be able to move towards its goal of having the world use drugs produced by Taiwan.
       Some legal persons have pointed out that Bora Pharmaceuticals' revenue in 2017 was at around 360 million. After acquiring Impax, the conservative estimation of its overall revenue can top at least NT$ 1 billion after deducting that of Impax's original raw material supplying business. Thus it seems that its revenue and EPS are expected to increase significantly this year, and the increase can be reflected in Quarter 1. Henceforth, Bora Pharmaceuticals' operational performance is expected to show explosive growth.

Reporting Source