In early 2012, Hg Capital began a process to dispose of its holding in Mercury Pharma, a UK-focused specialist generics company. Pharmacloud was approached by Cinven to assist in the commercial due diligence on this asset and to provide specialist input on the UK and international generics markets, working alongside Deloitte. As part of this process, we attended the management and VDD presentations and did extensive investigative work among other market players to establish the risks to Mercury’s key products.
While the Mercury sale process was ongoing, Cinven entered negotiations with the owners of Amdipharm, a company similar to Mercury in that it was built mainly through the acquisition of tail-end products from big pharma, but very different in its geographic footprint, which was primarily outside the UK. Seeing an opportunity to bring Mercury and Amdipharm together to create a much larger company with a sales profile balanced between the UK and international markets, Cinven undertook a rapid and intensive diligence process on Amdipharm with the aim of completing this at much the same time as the Mercury process. Pharmacloud led the commercial due diligence on Amdipharm, again alongside Deloitte, enabling the bank financing for the deal to be put in place in a timely manner.
Cinven announced the purchase of Mercury in August 2012 and of Amdipharm in October of the same year. The combined company, now renamed AMCo, has continued to expand rapidly through a combination of organic and inorganic growth, supported by Cinven. Since AMCo’s formation, Pharmacloud has assisted in the commercial due diligence on acquired assets including Fucithalmic (ophthalmic gel acquired from Leo in March 2013), Abcur (Danish specialty generics company acquired in Dec 2013) and Focus Pharma (UK specialty generics company acquired in October 2014).