Altana AG announced in July that it would split out the pharmaceuticals division into a separately listed company sometime next year. The news followed the group's €630 million ($770 million) acquisition of German specialty chemicals firm Eckhart GMBH, Altana's biggest ever purchase and a deal which strengthened the chemicals division sufficiently to create an independent entity.
But the timing couldn't have been worse for the company's pharmaceutical division, where two key late-stage development projects suffered setbacks...