Incident at the Aesica Cramlington API Facility

Consort Medical plc

15 July 2019

Incident at the Aesica Cramlington API Facility

Consort Medical plc (LSE: CSRT) ("Consort" or "Consort Medical"), a leading developer and manufacturer of drugs and premium drug delivery devices, announces that there was a recent incident in its Cramlington manufacturing facility. While no injuries were incurred in the incident, a small area of the operating plant was damaged by the rapid thermal degradation of a chemical resulting in the expulsion of material and contamination of the facility.

The safety of our employees is our absolute priority and we have suspended all similar manufacturing processes as we determine the cause of the incident. We are being supported in this by a specialist decontamination company and process safety experts.  They will investigate the causes and compile an independent report. We are also working closely with the local regulatory authorities.

The financial impact can not be accurately quantified at this stage as it will depend on a number of factors including the timing and results of the investigation, the completion of remediation work and future production activities. However, our initial expectation is that the Group's profit is likely to be negatively impacted by between £3 million to £5 million in the current financial year due to our current estimate of the anticipated disruption from this incident. 

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About Consort Medical plc

Consort Medical plc is a leading, global, single source pharma services drug and delivery device company. We are at the leading edge of innovation and we are committed to investing in patient, clinician and customer driven innovation to create new treatments, new markets and new opportunities.

Our businesses:

Bespak is a global market leader in the manufacture of drug delivery devices for pharmaceutical partner companies, including respiratory, nasal, injectables and ocular products, and the manufacture of devices for the point of care diagnostics market. www.bespak.com.

Aesica is a leading provider of finished dose and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) development and manufacturing services to pharmaceutical partners. www.aesica-pharma.com.

We employ approximately 2,000 people globally of which approximately 1,400 are located in the UK. We have UK facilities in King's Lynn, Cambridge, Nelson, Milton Keynes, Cramlington, Queenborough and Hemel Hempstead, German facilities in Monheim and Zwickau and a facility in Pianezza, Italy. Consort Medical is a public company quoted on the premium list of the London Stock Exchange (LSE: CSRT). www.consortmedical.com.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014.