As European governments and pharmaceutical manufacturers continue to examine how medicines are produced and supplied across the continent, an agreement between two Cyprus-based companies illustrates how that wider effort is also playing out at company level. Medochemie Ltd, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and Theramir Ltd, a biotechnology company specialising in extracellular vesicle and microRNA-based therapeutics, announced on 2 September 2026 a strategic investment and collaboration agreement aimed at developing manufacturing capabilities for next-generation biological therapies.
Under the agreement, the two companies, both based in Limassol, will work together to build Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) capabilities for advanced biological therapies and to support their progression towards clinical development. Theramir's wider research programme will also benefit from the collaboration, according to the companies.
A Supply Chain Under Scrutiny
The agreement lands several years into a larger European conversation about pharmaceutical supply security. That conversation intensified after the Covid-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in how medicines reach patients, and it led, in January 2024, to the establishment of the EU's Critical Medicines Alliance (CMA), a consultative platform bringing together EU member states, industry, civil society and the scientific community to identify supply chain vulnerabilities and propose solutions. The Alliance operates through a Forum open to all members, a Steering Board setting strategic direction, and two working groups focused respectively on strengthening EU manufacturing capacity and diversifying international partnerships.
Medochemie participates in the Alliance through Andreas Loizou, its Group Business Development Director, reflecting the company's existing role in European discussions on medicine supply. The Alliance's current scope centres largely on established generic medicines: antibacterials, oncologics and pain therapies together account for close to 40 per cent of the medicines on the European Commission's critical medicines list, and generics make up 92 per cent of that list overall, even though they represent only around 19 per cent of the European medicines market by value against 70 per cent of the volume consumed. Theramir's extracellular vesicle and microRNA-based platform sits outside that immediate scope; it belongs to an earlier-stage, more experimental category of biological therapy rather than the established generics the Alliance was set up to safeguard.
Generics, Biologics and a Widening Manufacturing Base
Even so, the Medochemie-Theramir agreement reflects a related pattern. Data cited by the Alliance shows that more than two-thirds of medicine shortages reported across Europe between January 2023 and January 2024 stemmed from products with fewer than five manufacturers, a figure that has kept supply diversification, across therapy types rather than only the products already designated critical, on the European policy agenda. The Alliance's February 2025 Strategic Report recommended several measures aimed at that same goal, including procurement policies that weigh security of supply alongside cost, a more harmonised approach to stockpiling, and increased European manufacturing capacity generally.
The agreement between Medochemie and Theramir does not fall under the Alliance's current remit, and neither company has suggested that it does. What it demonstrates is a separate but related response to some of the same underlying pressures: an established manufacturer extending its capabilities into a newer category of medicine, rather than only the generic products that make up the bulk of its existing business.
Many of the older medicines on the EU's critical list, including products within Medochemie's own portfolio, are valued partly because they face less bacterial resistance than newer alternatives, making them part of Europe's response to antimicrobial resistance. That dynamic helps explain why the Alliance's initial focus has stayed on established generics: the products most exposed to supply disruption tend to be the ones already in wide clinical use, produced by only a handful of manufacturers, rather than therapies still years from potential approval. Theramir's platform sits at the latter end of that spectrum, a reminder that supply resilience and next-generation therapy development are related but distinct problems for European policymakers to address.
What the Agreement Covers
Medochemie brings to the partnership its experience manufacturing sterile therapeutic products and its international reach. Founded nearly five decades ago, the company has grown from a single production site into a manufacturer with 15 facilities across Cyprus, the Netherlands and Vietnam, each meeting EU GMP standards, employing around 2,000 people worldwide and exporting to 122 countries. It is also a member of Medicines for Europe, an industry association whose generic-manufacturer members together operate more than 400 manufacturing sites across the continent, a network the Alliance has identified as important to maintaining supply resilience for medicines with few producers. Theramir brings its EVmiR platform, which uses stem-cell-derived extracellular vesicles to deliver customised microRNA sequences, short, non-coding RNA molecules involved in regulating genes and biological pathways linked to cancer growth and metastasis, directly to solid tumours. Founded in 2016 and co-founded by Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades, Theramir raised €1.2 million in 2023 from Cyprus-based investors ASBIS Enterprises and Lanitis Group as it worked toward preclinical development of its lead candidate.
Both companies describe the agreement as complementary rather than one-directional. Under the agreement, Medochemie's manufacturing infrastructure and regulatory experience are paired with Theramir's therapeutic platform, with the stated aim of moving Theramir's technology closer to clinical application while extending Medochemie's own manufacturing experience into next-generation biological therapies.
Company Perspectives
"We believe this collaboration marks an important milestone, not only for Medochemie but for the broader biotechnology landscape in Cyprus," said Daphne Pittas, Member of the Board of Directors of Medochemie. "Theramir's pioneering work in extracellular vesicle and miRNA-based therapeutics represents exactly the kind of high-potential science that our manufacturing expertise, international reach and regulatory experience can help bring closer to patients. By combining our strengths, we are investing not only in a promising technology platform, but in the future of advanced biomanufacturing in Cyprus, and in the country's ability to compete on the international biotechnology stage."
Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades, co-founder of Theramir, described the agreement in similar terms, framing it as a step that brings together the range of expertise required to move a therapeutic platform from research toward clinical use. "Moving an innovative therapeutic technology from the laboratory towards patients requires not only strong science, but also the right manufacturing, pharmaceutical and regulatory expertise," she said. "This collaboration brings these elements together and represents a major step towards translating our extracellular vesicle platform into clinical applications. As the future of medicine increasingly moves towards biologics and advanced therapeutics, we are particularly proud that two Cyprus-based companies can combine their expertise to strengthen internationally competitive biotechnology and biomanufacturing from Cyprus."
A Piece of a Larger Picture
The Alliance's recommendations were centred on the medicines already recognised as critical, but the underlying concern they respond to, that too few manufacturers produce too great a share of Europe's medicine supply, extends beyond that specific list. Biologics and RNA-based therapeutics are an area of growing interest for pharmaceutical manufacturers more broadly, as companies look to extend production capacity beyond the conventional generic medicines that remain the core of the European market.
Whether the Medochemie-Theramir agreement adds meaningfully to that capacity will depend on how Theramir's platform progresses through preclinical and, eventually, clinical development, a process both companies describe as still in its early stages. For now, the agreement adds one data point to a wider trend across the European pharmaceutical sector, in which manufacturers with established infrastructure are looking to extend that infrastructure toward newer categories of medicine, alongside the generics that continue to account for the majority of what they produce.
Medochemie's own history illustrates the scale such extensions can eventually reach: the company has grown, over nearly five decades, from a single facility into a manufacturer with 15 production sites and a presence in 122 export markets. Whether its work with Theramir follows a similar trajectory will become clearer as the two companies report progress on the GMP and clinical-development milestones set out in their agreement.