The company
With four production facilities across France, an R&D centre in Bordeaux and sales offices in Paris, the UNITHER group of companies (800 staff and a 2009 turnover of €108 million) is now the leading provider of contract formulation and packaging to Europe's pharmaceutical companies (notably eye drops, physiological saline solutions and asthma medications in sterile, unit doses and effervescent tablet formulations).
UNITHER was incorporated in 1993 following the acquisition of a pharmaceutical packaging plant (sales at the time: €2.5 million) from the Sanofi group. Thanks to support from its longstanding local investors, UNITHER grew rapidly and achieved a turnover of €23 million (mainly due to sales of sterile unit doses) by the late 1990s. In 2000, the management team participated in a first round of financing to accelerate the group's development (notably through external growth). Hence, in 2002, UNITHER acquired a second production facility for its core business - the sterile unit dose. The company then diversified its activities by entering the effervescent formulation sector in November 2005 through acquisition of the Creapharm group (pharmaceutical development and production of effervescent tablets, with sales of €34 million).
In 2009, UNITHER bought a Sanofi-Aventis facility in Colomiers and ramped up its production of stick packs.
UNITHER is growing its business in France and the rest of Europe by leveraging its four production facilities across France and its R&D site in Bordeaux. The company notably intends to capitalize on the potential of its existing commercial offering, its innovation capacity and external growth opportunities in a growing but still fragmented market.
