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Elanco completes sale of a pair of plants to CDMO TriRx in Kansas and UK

Animal health giant Elanco completed the sale of a pair of manufacturing facilities to TriRx Pharmaceutical Services, a Connecticut-based CDMO.

Financial terms of the two-facility deal, which was announced last year and includes a supply agreement, weren’t disclosed.

TriRx gets Elanco’s manufacturing site in Speke, U.K., and the former Bayer animal health plant in Shawnee, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri.

The Kansas facility handover was conducted last summer, and the Speke plant operations were given over in a formal ceremony this week. Originally constructed by Eli Lilly, the Speke facility can manufacture products for both humans and animal health. In addition to the sale of the site, about 350 employees at the site will transfer to TriRx.

The Speke facility, located near Liverpool, gives TriRx API and biological capabilities to manufacture human health and animal health products. The sale includes the physical assets of the site and transfer of approximately 350 employees. TriRx now has four manufacturing locations, two in North America and two in Europe.

“This important two-facility acquisition represents a significant step in our strategy to be a leading global CDMO in both animal health and human health,” Timothy C. Tyson, chairman and chief executive of TriRx, said in a statement.

Elanco, which was an Eli Lilly spinoff, acquired Bayer’s animal health division in a $7.6 billion deal the U.S. Federal Trade Commission signed off on in July 2020.

Bayer decided to shed its animal health franchise as part of the corporate overhaul plan it unveiled in late 2018 so it could focus on pharmaceutical and agricultural chemicals businesses, with more resources being relocated to drug R&D.