Global law firm Dentons has advised the South Korean Yonsung Group on its acquisition of German-based pharmaceutical manufacturer Arevipharma. Through this transaction, the parties will expand and internationalize Arevipharma’s active ingredient business and innovate and invest in its Radebeul production site. The two companies also intend to benefit from synergies between Yonsung’s research-centered and long-term oriented business philosophy and Arevipharma’s established industrial network through the merger. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price.

Yonsung Fine Chemicals was founded in 2000 as spin-off of Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. The company is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Prostaglandin products and is focused on highly potent substances. In addition, the company has also started to develop its own finished medicinal products. Over the last three years, Yonsung group has more than doubled in revenue through proprietary development projects and patents, and in 2020, it achieved a turnover of more than US$50 million.

Arevipharma is a medium-sized manufacturer of generic and originator active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and intermediates, which operates from a production site in Radebeul near Dresden. The product portfolio currently comprises more than 30 active pharmaceutical ingredients for various therapeutical areas in human and veterinary medicine.

A Dentons team from Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin advised Yonsung on all legal aspects of the transaction, including foreign trade in the healthcare sector, which has been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lead partner Thomas Strassner and his team regularly advise on transactions and venture capital financings in the healthcare sector.