Pharmgate, a Wilmington pharmaceutical company focused on livestock and poultry, has secured a larger slice of the animal health industry pie.
 
The company, whose office is on Ashes Drive, recently announced an agreement to acquire ProtaTek International, with its facilities in Minnesota and Arizona, in a deal expected to be completed by the end of the year.
 
Overall the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. is growing, and it’s expected to reach a value of $550 billion by 2020, according to researchers at GlobalData. But all those dollars aren’t just focused on humans.
 
The animal pharmaceutical industry has also been steadily growing as the demand for animal health products in the U.S. increases at more than 3 percent annually and will hit $12.7 billion in 2016, according to The Freedonia Group.
 
Pharmgate was established in 2008, and supplies animal pharmaceutical products to the feed and animal production industry in the U.S. The company was founded in New Jersey but relocated to Wilmington a year ago.
 
ProtaTek was launched in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1984 and has specialized in developing biological vaccines for use in swine, equine, and bovine.
 
“In anticipation of further consumer driven changes in medication practices of farm animals we have seen the need to diversify our product offering and biologicals are an obvious choice,” said Colin Gray, Pharmgate's president, in a news release announcing the move. “The acquisition provides a strong base from which to continue our growth trajectory and forms a good foundation in biologicals to be supplemented with further acquisition and internal development.”
 
Gray said the acquisition will permit Pharmgate to diversify its business in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016.
 
Pharmgate will acquire ProtaTek’s current operations in St Paul, and Mesa, Arizona, which include leased office buildings, a manufacturing facility, development and diagnostic laboratories as well as the entire manufacturing, research, finance, and customer service workforce.
 
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.