Sale of Greenwood pharmaceutical supplier highlights S.C.’s growing life sciences industry

One of South Carolina’s biggest life sciences employers is changing hands in a deal that highlights the big money that flows through the sector – one the state is hoping to lure to its borders.

Capsugel, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical supplier, said last week it was being sold to the Swiss manufacturer Lonza for a whopping $5.5 billion. The company’s biggest operation in the U.S. is in Greenwood, where it makes and markets medicine capsules that are used by thousands of drug companies. It was last sold in 2011 by Pfizer for about $2.4 billion.

South Carolina accounts for one in six of Capsugel’s employees, between its factory and regional headquarters in Greenwood. The firm has 13 sites with 3,600 employees around the world, and it says that’s not likely to change after the deal closes next year, though the company didn’t answer questions about whether its Palmetto State presence will grow or shrink.

Read more at The Post & Courier…