Cambrex Corp Value Stock - Dividend - Research Selection

Cambrex Corporation (the "Company" or "Cambrex"), a Delaware corporation, began business in December 1981. Cambrex is a life sciences company that provides products and services that accelerate and improve the development and commercialization of new and generic therapeutics. The Company primarily supplies its products and services worldwide to innovator and generic pharmaceutical companies. The Company's overall strategy is to: grow its portfolio of custom development projects, especially those in the later stages of the clinical trial process; secure long-term supply agreements to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (“APIs”) and intermediates for newly approved drug products; expand sales of products and projects based on its proprietary technologies; partner with generic drug companies to grow the Company’s extensive portfolio of generic APIs; and develop, or co-develop with partners, a portfolio of niche generic drug products in finished dosage form. The Company also seeks to demonstrate excellence in regulatory compliance, environmental, health and safety, and customer service. Cambrex has four operating segments, which are manufacturing facilities that have been aggregated as one reportable segment.

The Company uses a consistent business approach:

● Market Leadership: The Company secures leading market positions through excellent customer service, proprietary technologies, specialized capabilities and an outstanding regulatory record and leverages these capabilities across the market segments in which it participates.

● New Products and Services: The Company continues to invest in research and development (“R&D”) in order to introduce new generic and controlled substance APIs, a portfolio of niche generic drug products in finished dosage form, and optimize manufacturing processes to accelerate revenue growth, provide a competitive advantage and maintain its leading market positions.

● Investment in Manufacturing Capacity: The Company commits significant capital to improving and expanding its manufacturing facilities to meet the ongoing growth in pharmaceutical outsourcing.

● Niche Market Focus: The Company participates in niche markets where significant technical expertise provides a competitive advantage and market differentiation.

● Operational Excellence: The Company maintains its commitment to continually improve productivity and customer service levels and maintains excellent quality and regulatory compliance systems.

● Acquisition and Licensing: The Company may drive growth in strategic business segments through the prudent acquisition of businesses, products, product lines, technologies and capabilities to enhance the Company's position in its niche markets.

Market Overview and Growth Drivers

The Company participates in markets that serve the healthcare industry. Customers include generic drug companies and companies that discover and commercialize small molecule human therapeutics using organic chemistry.

The aging western population, continued investment in healthcare research and drug development, growth in the world’s developing markets, and the necessity to develop therapeutics to address unmet needs drives business growth in life sciences companies. Aging "baby boomers" in the United States, Europe and Japan may provide an enormous healthcare opportunity. This group typically has more education, a higher socio-economic level and higher demands for healthcare services than previous generations.

Demand for Cambrex products and services is dependent upon some of its customers’ continuing access to financial resources to advance their R&D projects for therapeutic candidates from the laboratory to the clinic, and eventually, to the patient. Healthcare investment comes from a variety of sources. Large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies spend billions annually on drug discovery and development and billions more are spent by numerous smaller emerging pharmaceutical companies. Macro-economic conditions can have an impact on the availability of funding for the Company’s customers, especially many of the smaller companies that are often dependent upon venture capital and other private sources of funding.

Cambrex assists companies in developing robust processes for the manufacture of clinical and commercial quantities. Product testing, analytical methods and quality processes are integrated into the manufacturing process. Cambrex excels in the manufacture and testing of APIs and drug substances at laboratory, clinical and commercial scale and specializes in scaling up and optimizing manufacturing processes.

Demand for outsourced services from pharmaceutical companies continues to grow. Large pharmaceutical companies outsource a portion of the development and manufacturing of intermediates and APIs to manage multiple internal priorities, access new technologies or additional capacity, preserve needed capital or ensure multiple sources of supply. Many emerging pharmaceutical and generic drug companies outsource all process development and manufacturing, and larger pharmaceutical companies typically outsource development and manufacturing. With large plants and product development resources in both Europe and the U.S., and large teams of professionals with substantial experience in the development, scale-up and operation of pharmaceutical manufacturing processes, Cambrex is particularly well positioned to assist drug companies with these much needed services for APIs.

New drugs are typically patented. When the patent expires, the drug may be manufactured and marketed in its generic form. Growth in the generic drug market is driven by the continuing stream of drug patents that will expire in the future and favorable market forces that encourage the use of generic pharmaceuticals as a more cost effective alternative to higher-priced branded drugs. In the United States, and many countries in Europe, governments and prescription benefit management companies provide incentives for generic substitution to reduce costs. Cambrex manufactures approximately 70 generic APIs, typically in relatively small quantities for use in niche therapeutics. The Company also continuously maintains a portfolio of APIs in development for eventual commercial sale to generic drug companies upon future patent expiration.

The Company is developing a portfolio of finished dosage form generic drug products and through its partners, filed three Abbreviated New Drug Applications (“ANDAs”) in the U.S. and may make equivalent filings in other countries to market these products. Cambrex will work with formulation development, manufacturing and marketing partners and may fund all or a portion of the expenses necessary to bring these products to market. Given expected development and approval times, the Company does not expect to realize revenues from this initiative until 2019 at the earliest, although this could be sooner if the Company acquires products already being sold commercially.

The market for human therapeutics is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) in the United States and other similar regulatory agencies throughout the world. These agencies oversee and regulate the development, manufacturing and commercialization processes for APIs and regulated intermediates. Continuous significant investment in facilities, people and training, along with excellent regulatory and quality systems and extensive experience in pharmaceutical fine chemical scale-up and manufacturing are essential to serve the industry and serve as a barrier to entry for potential new competitors.

Competitors from developing markets continually increase their capabilities in drug substance manufacturing and finished dosage form drugs. While overall global demand has been lifted by the rapid growth in certain developing markets, the presence of competitors within these markets, who have lower cost structures and competition in general, have resulted in downward pricing pressure throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain, and especially on generic APIs and early stage development services for clinical phase products. Pricing pressures due to developing market competitors for later stage clinical projects and supply arrangements for patented products has been limited to date, although these pressures may increase as competitors in developing markets improve their quality, regulatory and manufacturing systems to become more acceptable as suppliers to larger pharmaceutical companies. Cambrex regularly sources R&D services, raw materials and certain intermediates from developing market companies.

Development of the Business

In October 2016, Cambrex purchased 100% of PharmaCore, Inc. a privately-held company located in High Point, NC for $24,275, net of cash. The transaction was structured as a stock purchase. PharmaCore, which has been renamed Cambrex High Point, Inc. (“CHP”), specializes in developing, manufacturing and scaling up small molecule APIs for projects in early clinical phases. With the acquisition of CHP, Cambrex enhances its capabilities and expertise to efficiently develop early clinical phase products and new technologies, and increases the number of potential late stage and commercial products that could be manufactured at Cambrex’s larger manufacturing sites.

In late 2015, Cambrex management, with Board authority, committed to a plan to sell Zenara. On January 30, 2017, the Company transferred the assets and liabilities of Zenara to the buyer for consideration of approximately $2,800, which was held in escrow until approval by Indian regulatory authorities was obtained several months later. Accordingly, as of January 30, 2017, the Company no longer includes Zenara in its reported results. The immaterial assets and liabilities of Zenara are included in “Prepaid expenses and other current assets” and “Accrued expenses and other current liabilities” on the Company’s balance sheet for 2016. Refer to Note 8 to the Company’s consolidated financial statements for further explanation of the sale of Zenara.

Products

The Company uses its technical expertise in a wide range of chemical processes to meet the needs of its customers for high quality products and services for specialized applications.

The Company’s business is primarily comprised of the custom development and manufacture of pharmaceutical ingredients derived from organic chemistry. Products and services are supplied globally to innovator and generic drug companies. Products include APIs, pharmaceutical intermediates and, to a lesser extent, other fine chemicals.

The Company’s products and services are sold to a diverse group of several hundred customers, with one customer, Gilead Sciences, Inc., accounting for 35.1%, 36.9% and 34.5% of 2017, 2016, and 2015 consolidated sales, respectively. The Company’s products are sold through a combination of direct sales and independent agents. One API, an antiviral product, represented 32.8%, 31.6% and 32.1% of 2017, 2016 and 2015 consolidated sales, respectively.