Noucor is the name chosen by the investment group MCH Private Equity to rename the pharmaceutical business it acquired from the Uriach group last August. It is a new company based in Barcelona that encompasses three of the factories Uriach owned; it is born with a workforce of 400 employees and with the forecast of closing the 2021 financial year with a turnover of 80 million euros.
The Uriach family group has undergone a strong transformation process in recent years, reorienting its activity towards the over-the-counter drug business, where it has set out to be one of the main European groups in the consumer health market, as well as natural products and food supplements, with brands such as Aerored, Biodramina, Fave de Fuca, Aquilea, Utabon, Halibut and Fisiocrem. In this line, Uriach has undertaken important acquisitions, such as that of the German company Sidroga, the Italian Laborest and the Spanish Ceregumil, being already present in the market for non-prescription products in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
This economic effort aimed at the purchase of these companies led Uriach to make the decision to divest in the so-called B2B pharmaceutical business, that is, the area of production of medicines and active ingredients for third parties, a unit that in 2020 generated revenues of 74 million euros. In September, the MCH fund announced the purchase of this division, which integrates the three factories that Uriach had in Catalonia, located in the Barcelona towns of Sant Fost de Campsentelles and Palau-solità i Plegamans.
The new president of Uriach, Lluís Cantarell ---former senior executive of Nestlé and the first non-family member to hold the position--- argued in September that the sale of the B2B business allows "to finish defining Uriach's future strategic focus" and to dedicate "all efforts to continue investing to further accelerate the international growth" of the pharmaceutical company, which aims to reach a turnover of between 450 million and 500 million euros in four years.
As a result of this spin-off of Uriach's B2B business, Noucor was born, which wants to be a benchmark in the manufacture of generic drugs, licenses, development of new innovative molecules and production for third parties. In fact, Noucor will continue to manufacture, for example, all the products that Uriach produced until now in these plants.
"A new stage, a new company, a new brand, that drive our commitment to innovation and convert all our knowledge and experience into quality products and solutions. Noucor is born to continue growing, to continue improving health," states David Perdigó, CEO of the company owned by MCH.
This fund has also been a shareholder for ten years in the Catalan family business Europastry, and its portfolio of investees also includes Atrys Health, Grupo Pachá, the Altafit gym chain, and the Palacios food group, among other companies.
Noucor's productive assets are the Urquima fine chemicals factory in Sant Fost de Campsentelles ---which produces 50 tons of active ingredients annually--- and two plants, one for pharmaceutical specialties and another for food supplements, located in Palau-solità i Plegamans. They export to more than one hundred countries, and Noucor's objective is to boost its geographical expansion in markets such as Japan, China, or the United States. "Our challenge is to be a B2B pharmaceutical benchmark, with a constant commitment to innovation and responsiveness to our clients," states the new group, which expects to bill 80 million this 2021.
This fund is also a shareholder of the Catalan family business Europastry, and its portfolio of investees includes Atrys Health, Grupo Pachá, the Altafit gym chain, and the Palacios food group.The until now B2B division of Uriach has three main business areas: contract manufacturingor manufacturing of medicines and food supplements for third parties; generic medicines, andNew Chemical Entities(NCE) or new product development that is then licensed to third parties.One of Noucor's star drugs is the antihistamine Rupatadine, which has been introduced in key markets such as Japan, South Korea, and Canada.The new company, which employs 400 people, also highlights the growth of the generics business in Europe and in new countries such as Canada and Russia.
The BrandFor agency has been responsible for developing the new Noucor brand and the company's corporate identity, which is presented with the slogan Together for health.