Post-Merger Integration of Manufacturing Acquisitions

Challenge

A global pharmaceutical organisation undertook major brownfield acquisitions — transactions with a combined enterprise value in the hundreds of billions of DKK equivalent — and needed to integrate acquired manufacturing sites across technology, quality, supply chain and back-office functions in a heavily regulated (GxP) environment. No established integration function existed.

Role

First hire in a newly established post-merger integration function: responsible for designing the enterprise-wide integration framework and leading cross-functional integration workstreams across the acquisitions.

Approach

The integration covered the full value chain — technology due diligence, Day 1 readiness, system migration, financial-system consolidation, workforce integration, supply-chain harmonisation, and regulatory and compliance alignment — from back-office functions (finance, HR, IT, procurement) through front-line operations (logistics, labelling, GMP/quality compliance). Live integrations were executed in parallel with recruiting and onboarding the team delivering them. Learnings were codified into reusable integration playbooks and maturity programmes.

Outcome

Acquired sites integrated against a structured, auditable framework; reusable playbooks adopted across the wider organisation, compressing integration timelines for subsequent acquisitions; and a functioning integration capability built from a standing start.