Vectura Group Limited is a British

pharmaceuticals A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...

company based in

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement is ...

, England which develops inhaled medicines and makes

inhaler An inhaler (also known as a puffer, pump or allergy spray) is a medical device used for delivering medicines into the lungs through the work of a person's breathing. This allows medicines to be delivered to and absorbed in the lungs, which prov ...

devices. The company was listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pa ...

until it was acquired by

Philip Morris International Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) is an American multinational tobacco company, with products sold in over 180 countries. The most recognized and best selling product of the company is Marlboro. Philip Morris International is often refe ...

in September 2021.

History

The company was formed in 1997 at the

University of Bath (Virgil, Georgics II) , mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind , established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...

as a start-up pharmaceuticals business. In 1999 it acquired Co-ordinated Drug Development and the Centre for Drug Formulation Studies. The company moved from the university campus to a site at Chippenham in 2002. In 2004 it was listed on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

. In 2006 it acquired Innovata Biomed plc, another developer of

pulmonary The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and most other animals, including some snails and a small number of fish. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of ...

products, and then moved onto the full list of the London Stock Exchange. It acquired Activaero, a German manufacturer in the same sector, for £108million in March 2014. In June 2016 Vectura completed a £441million merger with Skyepharma, a maker of devices such as

asthma inhalers A metered-dose inhaler (MDI) is a device that delivers a specific amount of medication to the lungs, in the form of a short burst of aerosolized medicine that is usually self-administered by the patient via inhalation. It is the most commonly used ...

; it was announced that the merged company would continue to be known as Vectura. The former Skyepharma manufacturing plant at

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

, France, makes various oral products including tablets. After Vectura decided to concentrate on inhaled products, in June 2021 the company supported a buy-out of the site by its management, with finance from

Bpifrance ''Banque publique d'investissement'' (literally '' renchPublic Investment Bank'', also known as Bpifrance, BPI Groupe S.A.) is a French public investment bank. It is a joint venture of two public entities: the Caisse des dépôts et consignatio ...

. In July 2021, American tobacco company

made an offer to buy Vectura Group for £1 billion.

The Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...

, an American private equity firm, also submitted an offer which was £44m lower. The board subsequently accepted the offer from Philip Morris International and, in September 2021, the company confirmed that circa 75% of shareholders had supported the takeover.

Operations

Vectura is a developer of inhaled therapies for the treatment of

respiratory disease Respiratory diseases, or lung diseases, are pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange difficult in air-breathing animals. They include conditions of the respiratory tract including the trachea, bronchi, ...

s. Since 2019 it has operated as a

contract development and manufacturing organization A contract manufacturing organization (CMO), more recently referred to (and more commonly used now) as a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) to avoid the acronym confusion of Chief Medical Officer or Clinical Monitoring Organ ...

(CDMO), helping other companies bring inhaled medicines to market. The headquarters and development facility at Chippenham, on a mixed industrial site on the outskirts of the town, employs around 250 . There are also development sites at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

Muttenz Muttenz is a municipality with a population of approximately 17,000 in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland. It is located in the district of Arlesheim and next to the city of Basel. History Under the Roman Empire a hamlet called Montetum ...

(Basel, Switzerland) and

Gauting Gauting is a municipality in the district of Starnberg, in Bavaria, Germany with a population of approximately 20,000. It is situated on the river Würm, southwest of Munich and is a part of the Munich metropolitan area. Geography Stockdor ...

(Germany). There are plans for a new research & development building at the

Bristol and Bath Science Park Bristol and Bath Science Park (BBSP) is a science park in Emersons Green, South Gloucestershire, England, north-east of Bristol and north-west of Bath. It cost £300 million to build and is expected to employ about 6,000 when fully developed. The ...

, not far from Chippenham, which could open in 2025.

References

External links

* {{Philip Morris International 2021 mergers and acquisitions British companies established in 1997 British subsidiaries of foreign companies Chippenham Companies based in Wiltshire Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Pharmaceutical companies established in 1997 Pharmaceutical companies of England Philip Morris International