Leiner Health Products Buys Canada’s Stanley Pharmaceuticals

TORONTO—Novopharm spokesman Leslie Dan says the sale of Novopharm’s Stanley Pharmaceuticals and Granutec divisions to Carson, CA-based Leiner Health Products will result in “no change whatsoever” in operating procedures, but a Canadian consultant says the sale could result in big changes in the country’s supplements industry.

Leiner was scheduled to close its purchase of Stanley Pharmaceuticals and Granutec, along with certain related assets of Toronto-based Novopharm, by Nov. 30. Details of the transaction have not been released.

Leiner is one of the U.S.’s largest privately held supplements and OTC pharmaceutical companies, marketing more than 500 products under brand names that include Your Life and Pharmacist Formula. Novopharm is Canada’s leading manufacturer of branded generic drugs and also manufactures supplements.

Toronto-based natural-products business consultant Bill Reynolds says he believes Leiner’s purchase several years ago of Vita Health will shape Stanley’s operating procedures as a Leiner subsidiary.

Reynolds thinks Leiner will move much of Stanley’s supplements business to herb and vitamin-oriented Vita, concentrating Stanley’s manufacturing processes on OTC drugs.

“Not all of the smaller chains will want to do business with one company,” he says.

Look for Canadian manufacturers CE Jamieson and Natural Factors to expand their supplements and vitamins businesses as a result of the Stanley purchase, Reynolds says.