Roche comes out against clearing takeover of drug manufacturer Catalent

By Ludwig Burger

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The CEO of pharmaceuticals giant Roche has urged authorities to block the takeover of contract drug manufacturer Catalent by Novo Nordisk's controlling shareholder, citing harm to industry peers.

"It's not a problem for us, but it could be a problem for other smaller players, if there is a restriction in how many (contract manufacturers) are available," Roche's CEO Thomas Schinecker said in a media call. "From an industry perspective, it would be a wrong decision by authorities."

He spoke after the release of quarterly sales on Wednesday.

Last week, U.S. consumer groups and labour unions petitioned the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to block Novo Holdings, the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk, from acquiring Catalent, saying the deal threatened competition in weight loss drugs and cutting-edge gene therapies.

The groups said at the time that the deal could constrain options for competitors such as Amgen, Pfizer, Roche and AstraZeneca, which are reportedly developing their own obesity drugs, some of which are based on difficult-to-make peptides.

Viking Therapeutics, Structure Therapeutics and Sun Pharma could also be affected, the groups said.

Novo Holdings has said it believes in a "pro-competitive rationale" for the transaction.

The head of Roche's pharmaceutical division, Teresa Graham, underscored on Wednesday that Roche itself was not impacted: "We are quite confident in the capacity we have. We have reserved capacity with other CMOs (contract manufacturing organisations)."

Roche has previously said it would use a mix of in-house and external manufacturing for future commercial production of its obesity drugs.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Rachel More and Tomasz Janowski)