BIOVECTRA, the Charlottetown drug maker that in 2019 was bought by Miami-based H.I.G. Capital for US$250 million, has reached an agreement to be sold again, this time for US$925 million or C$1.27 billion.

The deal with Santa Clara, California’s Agilent Technologies is expected to close by the end of this year, BIOVECTRA said in a statement. The companies did not disclose the conditions that must be met for it to close, but promised to reveal more information after the transaction is finished. 

The project will see BIOVECTRA share supply chain resources with: Toronto's CCRM, which produces regenerative medicine-based technologies and cell and gene therapies; Massachusetts-based Cytiva; Calgary’s Northern RNA; and Hamilton, Ont.-based OmniaBio. The aim is to standardize work on lentiviral vector vaccines, which are immunotherapies that have shown promise in treating cancer, the consortium said in a statement.

Agilent and BIOVECTRA are both CDMOs, or contract development and manufacturing organizations — essentially white label drugmakers.

“BIOVECTRA's manufacturing capabilities further expand Agilent's end-to-end biopharma offerings into new growth vectors, including workflows that seamlessly integrate analytical instrumentation, consumables, and a wide range of lab services,” said Agilent CEO Padraig McDonnell.

The news comes just months after BIOVECTRA signed a supply chain partnership deal with a quartet of other life sciences companies as part of a project from NGEN, the federal manufacturing Supercluster.

“Today is a testament to the reputation BIOVECTRA has built as a trusted partner with our roster of clients and to our internal efforts to continuously grow our service offering, ultimately better serving patients’ lives,” said BIOVECTRA Chief Executive Oliver Technow. “We are grateful for the role H.I.G. has played in our success these past five years and are excited to further build on that with Agilent through this synergistic pairing."

Correction: The original article had an inaccurate description of CCRM, which we have changed.