Speciality Chemicals Magazine SEPT / OCT 2022 | Page 18

EuroAPI is now fully independent and a heavyweight contender in the CDMO market . We spoke to CEO Karl Rotthier

A new player takes the stage

EuroAPI is now fully independent and a heavyweight contender in the CDMO market . We spoke to CEO Karl Rotthier

CPHI Frankfurt in November will not be the first one at which EuroAPI is present : it was there in Milan last year , but with a relatively small stand at a much reduced show . This year , it will have a much more substantial presence and will be there as a fully independent firm for the first time . EuroAPI is the result of Sanofi ’ s announcement in February 2020 that it would carve out its API business . Karl Rotthier arrived as CEO in January 2021 and the top management team was completed that June . Now the whole scouting team for CDMO work is in place worldwide . In addition to CDMO activities , EuroAPI ’ s ‘ API

Rotthier - This is the most exciting project in the API / CDMO world
Solutions ’ business has a portfolio of some 200 APIs , which it sells to over 500 customers in more than 80 countries . It owns six European manufacturing sites and development centres , employing about 3,350 . Rotthier himself is a Belgian national , whose background is in economics . After rising to be marketing and sales director for BASF in the Benelux region , he spent most of his career in Germany . He joined DSM , then a big player in outsourced pharmaceutical services , in 2005 . During his ten years as CEO of DSM Anti-Infectives , Rotthier saw through the joint venture that became DSM Sinochem Pharmaceuticals , then the sale of this business to Bain Capital once DSM no longer saw it as core . Following a couple of years out of the business , he learned of Sanofi ’ s project to create a separate pharmaceutical services division . “ I had experience of corporate management , had been a CEO , done a joint venture and had private equity experience ; the only experience missing was listing a company ,” Rotthier says . “ I also did my due diligence and I think it is 100 % correct to say that in the API / CDMO world , this is the most exciting project there is .”
On the launchpad
At the time the intention to launch what became EuroAPI
Manufacturing at Frankfurt-Höchst
was made , there was no mention of it being a CDMO , even though the term was in common use by then . It was only during the process when Rotthier and the team realised what they had in their hands in addition to the API portfolio . “ That ’ s why we worked very hard to get listed and do the IPO because it is essential that we can say to our customers that we are independent . Otherwise they will not come to us ,” Rotthier says . The invasion of Ukraine and the crisis it provoked largely slammed the door on IPOs , even though a company supplying essential medicines from a base entirely in the West became more relevant than ever . EuroAPI therefore opted instead for a spin-off . The listing on EuroNext Paris market was completed on 6 May . EuroAPI has since joined the SBF 120 index , which comprise the top 120 stocks listed on Euronext Paris in terms of both liquidity and market capitalisation , and the CAC Mid 60 , the 60 largest French equities beyond the CAC 40 and the CAC Next 20 . At the time of the spin-off , Sanofi confirmed its intention to hold 30 %
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