Soneas MD Jozsef Repasi discusses the shift back towards Central and Eastern Europe for contract manufacturing services, the company’s growth since separating from Ubichem, and his ambitions for Soneas to become a fully integrated, end-to-end service provider. As an introduction for our readers, can you please shed some insight into your background and describe how you ultimately ended up with Soneas? After graduating and subsequently working 24 years in pharmaceuticals, including with various academic institutions and research organizations, I started to work as a consultant for Ubichem, a UK-based trading company at that time. Following the collapse of the communist regime, we decided to set up a subsidiary in Hungary in 1996, which was a rather turbulent period in the industry. [related_story] This was also during the early beginnings of privatization. We had a very good talent base here and the pharmaceutical sector had already been quite developed under the former system—collectively creating an ideal platform to start a new company focusing on chemistry. We started as a relatively small company with only three colleagues. We’ve grown quite significantly over the years, now with approximately 160 people on staff. Building up our network of clients was probably one of the biggest challenges initially, but having been affiliated with a well-established English trading company definitely helped. Ubichem was actually founded in the early 1970s and had a very good network of customers in the chemicals and pharma industry, so we did not need to start from scratch. But this was their first non-trading entity. In 2002, we bought a small pilot plant and started to focus strictly on pharmaceutical intermediates, and subsequently began API production in 2004. Before that we were only active in development services for chemical companies, but we did not do any manufacturing. Ubichem did not have sufficient financial resources to support the growth of the company and therefore sold its shares in the Hungarian subsidiary in 2011, after which point, the majority of our company was bought out by a private Hungarian investor. Almost immediately, we began focusing on growth strategies, creating Ubichem Pharma Manufacturing the following year to effectively complement our research arm. Then, we took over an existing intermediate manufacturing facility originally owned by Chinoin, which had a relatively big manufacturing capacity, with roughly 200,000 liter reactor capacity and 70 employees already on staff. We started to build up our product portfolio and implement a major renovation program. Until 2014, there were two Ubichems that existed, so in an effort to distinguish ourselves from the legacy company, we launched a rebranding campaign and changed our name to Soneas. What aspect of the development lifecycle is the company primarily active in? Currently, our services mainly focus on early stage development services, encompassing chemistry development services, pre-clinical activities and small-scale production of APIs. That being said, however, we also offer large-scale manufacturing for intermediates. Our current facility allows us to carry out cGMP manufacturing of APIs, but only limited volumes—up to 50 to 100kg—so we can cover companies’ needs up to phase I or even phase II clinical trials, after which point we would need to transfer the technology to a third party or back to our clients. At the large-scale manufacturing site, we’re only producing intermediates, but we’re able to do so in commercial quantities. How have you gone about adapting the company’s service offering in line with industry trends? Over the last two to three years, Central and Eastern Europe has become increasingly attractive as a source for these chemicals. Starting from 2006, we began witnessing a big exodus, with a large part of this industry leaving Europe for India or China. But, now we see the opposite; more and more clients are coming back. The prices in China are increasing fairly rapidly, leaving European companies in a more competitive spotlight.

The prices in China are increasing fairly rapidly, leaving European companies in a more competitive spotlight.