December 19, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Contract manufacturing organization Recipharm AB is ending the year with a search for a new chief financial officer. This morning the Swedish company announced its CFO Björn Westberg resigned his position with the company.
The company did not provide a reason for Westberg’s departure, but said he would remain with the company until Feb. 23, when the company provides its full-year report. The company said it will initiate a search committee to find a new CFO, but did not provide a timeline.
“We are disappointed to be losing Mr. Westberg and we would like to sincerely thank him for the significant contributions he has made to Recipharm in the past 10 years. He has been a strong leader and has brought invaluable expertise to the company,” Thomas Eldered, Recipharm’s chief executive officer said in a statement.
In November, Recipharm announced a 45 percent increase in net sales, primarily due to M&A activity. Earlier this year, the company completed the acquisitions of Kemwell Pharma and Circus Pharmaceuticals.
Recipharm has been investing in its product development technologies. Most recently the company launched a showcase line for serialization in its Swedish facilities. Serialization is a means to trace and track pharmaceuticals from manufacture through to prescription, using bar codes to record information about product origin, shelf life and batch. Recipharm said the showcase line will perform multiple activities including “the downloading of serial numbers from our Level 4 solution, serialization of the package and the application of tamper evidence labels. It will also demonstrate manual aggregation including labelling of boxes and pallets and post-serialization work, including the reworking and uploading of data to Level 4.”
“The project, which is being carried out over the next three years, will ensure that all pharmaceutical companies using Recipharm’s contract manufacturing services comply with the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (EUFMD) Safety Features Delegated Regulation, which makes the serialization of licensed drug products in Europe a legal requirement from 2019,” Recipharm said in an October statement.
Earlier this month, Recipharm and Laccure AB entered into an agreement to manufacture Laccure Pessary, a new product developed to help women suffering from bacterial vaginosis. The date of the drug’s launch has not yet been announced, but Laccure said it will provide a date in 2017.
Recipharm employs about 3,500 people in Sweden, parts of Europe, Asia and the United States. Shares of Recipharm, sold on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, are down more than 3 percent today.
