AMINO GmbH Buyout Led by Managing Director

FRELLSTEDT, Germany—A team led by Lutz Thomas, managing director of AMINO GmbH (www.aminoactives.com), completed a management buyout of the company’s amino acids business and charged the newly-acquired enterprise with a vision of becoming a leading supplier of specialty amino acids to the global marketplace. Under terms of the buyout, Thomas and his group of private investors will acquire the amino acids business, which retains the AMINO name, as well as the main AMINO GmbH assets, including facilities and personnel at its production site here, making it one of the few amino acid manufacturers in Europe.

The new AMINO will focus completely on pharma- and infusiongrade amino acids produced under strict cGMP (good manufacturing practice) standards and developed from both extraction (concentrating on vegetable raw materials) technology and modern biotechnology/ fermentation. The product line will include not only traditional products such as L-leucine, L-tyrosine and betaine pharma-grade, but also new amino acids from fermentation, including L-isoleucine, L-valine and L-threonine. In addition, the company plans to launch L-serine and L-phenylalanine in early 2007.

“We are back to focusing on our core business and [are] more determined than ever before to become a leading supplier of specialty amino acids, thus bringing to reality the vision we began to develop through AmBio, a strategic alliance with our partners,” Thomas noted. “It’s been a long time coming, but AMINO is back; and we’ll be stronger than ever.”