3M completes $650M drug delivery unit sale, but business to remain in Twin Cities

3M has completed the $650 million sale of its drug delivery unit, but the business and its 900 employees will remain in the Twin Cities.

The new entity owned by Altaris Capital Partners will be called Kindeva Drug Delivery and continue to operate its R&D lab and a manufacturing facility on 3M's Maplewood campus for about a year, Aaron Mann, who led the unit under 3M and will now be Kindeva's CEO, said on Monday.

The company plans to find new space in the east metro, he said.

"I am just incredibly excited to have the opportunity to take the business out [of 3M] and to take it forward," he said.

Under the sales agreement first announced in December, 3M receives not only cash, but also an interest-bearing security and a 17% stake in the new company, 3M officials said. The sale does not include 3M's transdermal components business.

3M will net about 40 cents per share as a result of the divestiture. The divested business has about $380 million in annual revenue and dozens of customers including the asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) medicine maker Mylan Labs and micro-needle customer Radius Health, Mann said.

Kindeva Drug Delivery partners with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to develop and manufacture complex pharmaceutical products that use inhalers, and transdermal, microneedle or conventional drug delivery methods.

Kindeva also is working on several pilot drug delivery programs with pharmaceutical firms racing to make vaccines against the coronavirus.

3M in recent years has made several divestitures either because they no longer fit within the company's shifting "core business" model, or because it needed the money to fund larger acquisitions such as its $6.7 billion Acelity purchase in October.

3M has spent the last four months bulking up its global production of personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, during a conference call with analysts last week, CEO Mike Roman noted that biopharma filtration, food safety and other health related products helped it beat earnings expectations for the first quarter.

3M's stock price fell 20 cents to close at $148.40 a share Monday.

Dee DePass • 612-673-7725