Vectura, the Chippenham-based specialist pharma group, is to close one of its German production plants to cut costs.
The site at Gemünden, in central Germany, was taken over by Vectura a year ago as part of its €130m (£108m) acquisition of specialist German pharmaceutical company Activaero. 
It makes ingredients used in the production of the firm’s nebuliser devices, supporting clinical trials and marketing of the devices.
At the time of the takeover, Vectura said it could save around €1.5m by reducing duplicate head office and administrative costs.
Production will be transferred to Vectura’s Gauting plant in Bavaria, its sites in Chippenham and Cambridge and to an outside contractor. The Gemünden plant will close by March next year.
Dr Chris Blackwell, chief executive of Vectura, which focuses on developing drugs to treat airways-related diseases, said the decision was “a strategic and necessary one”.
He added: “It will rationalise our business operations and deliver more cost-effective production of our nebulisers. We retain the capabilities and capacity at our three remaining sites to support all our business operations.”
The Activaero deal has helped Vectura gain access to revenue-generating, proprietary, smart nebuliser-based technology and brought opportunities to develop a wide range of molecular entities, ranging from small molecules to biologics.
