Private equity investor Advent International, on Tuesday announced the launch of Cohance Lifesciences, a new brand identity for its API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) and CDMO (contract development and manufacturing company) platform.
Cohance Lifesciences would help in establishing a unified new brand identity for the API and CDMO platform to better reflect its vision and operating philosophy, the company said in a release.
The platform will comprise Advent’s three portfolio companies in RA Chem Pharma, ZCL Chemicals and Avra Laboratories.
The Cohance Lifesciences platform is forward-integrated into pellets, formulations and clinical research to provide end-to-end offerings to its customers, the company said.
Advent International plans to add more assets in the future to the platform as it aims to become one of the top three merchant API and CDMO companies in India.
“Over the last two years, Advent International has acquired three unique, yet complementary businesses in the API/CDMO space and has built a meaningful market position, demonstrating strong growth," said Pankaj Patwari, managing director, Advent.
Advent has built a single leadership team for the API platform. “The team will help us to drive growth, synergies and operational efficiencies. Our business model has a strong focus on customer service, sustainability, efficient infrastructure and robust quality systems,” said Patwari.
Advent has been investing in India since 2007 and founded its Mumbai office in 2009. It entered into the API space with a controlling stake in RA Chem Pharma in October 2020. The investor later acquired controlling stakes in ZCL Chemicals in March 2021 and Avra Laboratories in April 2022. Its previous investments in healthcare investments in India include Bharat Serums and Vaccines.
So far, Advent has invested or committed more than $3.4 billion across 14 companies with headquarters or operations in India in sectors such as business and financial services, retail, consumer and leisure, healthcare, industrial and technology. Globally, Advent has invested over $10.4 billion across 51 companies in healthcare.
Advent International completed fundraising for its tenth flagship "Advent International GPE X" fund in May. The fund reached its hard cap of $25 billion in commitments within six months.
With the latest fund, which is also the largest Advent has raised so far, the investor is focusing more on sectors such as healthcare and consumer. However, it is also selectively exploring opportunities in IT and BFSI.