Global Healthcare Opportunities, or GHO Capital Partners LLP, the European specialist investor in healthcare, together with the existing management team has acquired Ardena, a specialist contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) focused on early phase drug development, from Mentha Capital.
Ardena is a multi-service CDMO, assisting small-to-mid sized biopharma with services spanning the full development life cycle. The Company offers a comprehensive ‘Make, Analyse, File’ model from drug substance and drug product manufacturing and bioanalytical services through to regulatory dossier development. Headquartered in Belgium, the company operates across several sites in the Netherlands, Sweden and Latvia.
With a strong reputation for quality and a flexible service delivery model, Ardena caters to a highly diversified base of over 300 customers throughout Europe, the US, Japan and Korea. A high science approach and broad drug development toolkit differentiate Ardena from peers as a comprehensive multi-service pan-European platform.
With extensive sectoral expertise and network in the global biopharma industry, the GHO team will support management in accelerating Ardena’s plan to enable customers to take a molecule from ‘target to clinic’ with a single outsourced drug development service provider.
GHO plans to further strengthen Ardena’s broad service proposition through organic and inorganic opportunities, adding to both the Company’s offering and international footprint.
The Company is well-positioned to benefit from sector trends as an increasing number of biopharma companies outsource large parts of their early stage drug development work to highly specialised CDMOs.
Harry Christiaens, CEO of Ardena, commented: “With their deep expertise in the Pharma sector, we are excited now to partner with GHO as we continue our international growth. Ardena and GHO are fully committed to the science-led approach that delivers valuable solutions for our biopharma customers globally.”
The Partners at GHO Capital, commented: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Ardena team. Operating within a highly fragmented market, Ardena is the market leading platform from which to build a fully integrated early stage CDMO, serving Biopharma clients globally.”
Gijs Botman, Partner of Mentha Capital, commented: “Ardena has grown from a Ghent-based business to become a leading early-stage, multi-service CDMO in Western Europe. After successfully completing and integrating four acquisitions, the company is now ready for a new growth phase. We had a fantastic journey with the Ardena team, and we are confident that GHO Capital is the right partner to support their ambitions going forward.”
