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Biofarma Group is an industrial group in the province of Udine that operates in the development, production, and packaging of food supplements, medical devices, probiotic-based drugs, and cosmetics exclusively for third parties, acquired in December 2021 by the finished products division of Giellepi, an international company founded over 20 years ago and specialized in the distribution of innovative raw materials for products nutraceuticals both in the development of food supplements and medical devices licensed to important multinationals: it is about this last sector of activity that the acquisition by Biofarma Group of the “renamed” Business Branch International Health Science (IHS) takes shape.
An operation of great strategic importance, with which the group wanted to promote the relationship between the scientific world, research, and the industrial world to offer its customers increasingly innovative products and services validated by scientific experimentation. All this further strengthens its R&D, regulatory and commercial structure with new specific skills regarding medical devices for the European and Asian markets.
Giellepi is the story of a company that has always challenged its limits to always look for new growth opportunities.
After its establishment, in 1998, from the acquisition of an Italian branch of a multinational, the company redefines its business model, rethinking the raw materials of which Giellepi is a distributor as a starting point, not a point of arrival, and starting to formulate and develop new products to be proposed to the customer portfolio.
The turning point came when commercial competitiveness consolidated the capacity for product development with the rigor of scientific thinking. Intensifying relations with the scientific community and creating a network of selected stakeholders to be able to develop products validated by clinical trials.
The creation of a network of opinion leaders and critical experts in the sector has made it possible to specifically position the products, identifying, most rigorously and concretely possible, the sample to be tested during clinical trials.
The great project of Biofarma Group, which combines financial strength with the concreteness of the industrial project, takes over in 2021 with the integration process of IHS and above all with the common intent to develop the most exquisitely scientific soul of the group, promoting the relationship among science, research, and the industrial world, to offer customers increasingly innovative and validated products and services by experimentation.
The transaction concluded by Biofarma Group represents a strategic step in the Group’s development project, as it confirms the importance of placing the ability to innovate at the heart of the business, especially about the changes in the health care sector where increasingly complex skills, technologies, and studies will be required. An evolution on which Ardian private equity group French has also bet, which in January 2022 acquired most of the Biofarma Group from White Bridge Investments.
Biofarma has become a leader in its reference market through a path of aggregation of complementary companies. Since 2016, the company has grown from around 30 million to over 230 million in revenue, thanks to double-digit organic growth and intense M&A activity: five acquisitions in four years). Almost 50% of the turnover is developed on international markets, benefiting from the partnership with various global customers.
“The operation with Ardian – says the CEO of Biofarma Maurizio Castorina – will allow the group to become the first global player specialized in the nutraceutical sector. In addition, the new resources will allow us to continue the excellent path of growth and aggregation achieved in recent years thanks to the support of White Bridge Investments, evaluating new interesting opportunities for international expansion in Europe, APAC, and the United States“. ” Finally, concludes Castorina, Biofarma will continue to invest significantly in research and innovation, real differentiating factors in our market, allowing the company to consolidate its leadership."
