CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 26, 2026--
Aptar Pharma, a global leader in drug delivery, dosing, protection technologies and services, today announced the strategic acquisition of PULMOTREE, a Munich, Germany-based life science company specializing in pulmonary drug delivery systems for targeted delivery to the lungs. The acquisition is expected to accelerate the development, industrialization and commercialization of PULMOTREE’s Kolibri™ Non-Propellant Liquid Inhaler (NPLI) platform.
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The acquisition is intended to expand Aptar Pharma’s opportunities for growth in respiratory drug delivery by adding a differentiated non-propellant platform capable of supporting the delivery of complex molecules, including biologics.
"The acquisition of PULMOTREE is an important step in expanding Aptar Pharma’s leadership in respiratory drug delivery and broadening the opportunities we can address with our pharmaceutical partners,” said Gael Touya, President and CEO of Aptar. “Kolibri™ brings a differentiated technology to our portfolio with the potential to support increasingly complex inhaled therapies, including biologics. By combining this platform with Aptar Pharma’s formulation, device development, regulatory, manufacturing and patient-support capabilities, we can help customers move innovative therapies from development toward commercialization while creating new avenues for long-term growth.”
Jonathan Mulpas, Director of Business Development, Pulmonary Category, Aptar Pharma, stated, “Our collaboration with PULMOTREE over the past two years has enabled pharmaceutical partners to evaluate and gain hands-on experience with the Kolibri™ platform. The interest we have seen reinforces our belief that there is a need for this differentiated patient-centric technology designed to support the next generation of inhaled therapies.”
Ulf Krüger, CEO of PULMOTREE, stated, “The partnership between PULMOTREE and Aptar Pharma has been built on close, trust-based collaboration, and joining Aptar is the natural next step on that shared path. For our customers and partners, this acquisition is intended to provide continuity in the technology - now backed by the reach and resources of a global organization.”
Beyond expanding Aptar Pharma’s respiratory device portfolio, the acquisition is expected to create opportunities to deepen customer relationships and capture greater value across the drug development lifecycle. By leveraging offerings within Aptar Pharma companies such as Nanopharm’s formulation development and analytical expertise, Noble’s Human Factors support and patient onboarding, and Aptar Digital Health ’s services, Aptar Pharma can customize drug formulation development, optimize device design, and support efforts to improve patient outcomes to provide their customers with a value-added finished product.
Non-Propellant Liquid Inhalers encompass nebulizers and soft-mist inhalers and are being developed as an alternative to propellant-based systems. PULMOTREE’s Kolibri™ utilizes a robust breath-triggered Vibrating Mesh aerosolization engine with unique breath-guidance capabilities designed to enhance targeted lung deposition. The award-winning Kolibri™ technology incorporates advanced connectivity features that can support treatment monitoring, patient engagement and the generation of real-world therapy insights.
Building on the exclusive collaboration agreement established with PULMOTREE in 2024, Aptar Pharma intends to leverage its comprehensive capabilities and services, including regulatory, manufacturing and commercial expertise, with a goal of providing pharmaceutical partners with a clear pathway from development through clinical evaluation and market launch for Kolibri™.
About Aptar Pharma
Aptar Pharma is part of AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR), a global leader in drug delivery, dosing and protection technologies, and consumer product dispensing. Aptar partners with the world’s top healthcare and consumer brands to deliver medicines and create exceptional user experiences. Serving diverse markets, from pharmaceutical to beauty to food and beverage, Aptar combines market expertise with proprietary design, engineering and science to develop innovative solutions that help improve lives worldwide. Headquartered in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Aptar employs 14,000 dedicated people across 20 countries. Learn more at http://www.aptar.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the anticipated benefits of the acquisition of PULMOTREE; the development, industrialization and commercialization of the Kolibri™ Non-Propellant Liquid Inhaler platform; expected growth opportunities in respiratory drug delivery; the integration of PULMOTREE’s technology with Aptar Pharma’s capabilities and services; and customer interest in and demand for the platform. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts and by use of words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “intends,” “aims,” “designed,” “potential,” “opportunities,” “accelerate,” “expand,” “create,” “future” and other similar expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “can,” “should,” “would” and “could,” which are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are based on our beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to us. Accordingly, our actual results or other events may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements due to known or unknown risks and uncertainties that exist in our operations and business environment including, but not limited to: our ability to successfully integrate PULMOTREE and to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition; the timing, cost and success of the development, industrialization, regulatory approval and commercialization of the Kolibri™ platform and of our customers’ products incorporating it; customer adoption of and demand for non-propellant inhalation technologies; our ability to retain PULMOTREE’s key personnel and customer relationships; our ability to protect and enforce intellectual property relating to the Kolibri™ platform; the regulatory environment, including regulation of drug-device combination products and connected-health features; and competition, including technological advances. For additional information on these and other risks and uncertainties, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the discussion under “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Form 10-Ks and Form 10-Qs. We undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
Aptar Acquires Pulmotree; acquisition is expected to accelerate the development and commercialization of the Kolibri™ Non-Propellant Liquid Inhaler platform
CORINTH, Miss. (AP) — President Donald Trump campaigned Monday in Mississippi, as he continues a closing midterm rally blitz that highlights Republicans' challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country.
“I'm here because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can’t take a chance,” Trump told the crowd, his voice audibly hoarse, as he worked to boost Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is facing a surprisingly stiff challenge from Democrat Scott Colom.
Colom was spotted at the rally site, too, creating the rare spectacle of Trump's staunchest supporters interacting directly with a figure the president would soon go on to denigrate as a “Marxist radical” and “fake" and “shameless phony who pretends to be a moderate” from the stage.
Mississippi, among the nation’s most reliably Republican states, is not where the GOP envisioned needing a late-October stop from the president. But Colom is one of many Democratic underdogs who have managed to expand the House and Senate battleground maps because of widespread voter discontent over inflation, the Iran war and other aspects of Trump’s second presidency.
He said he had planned to go to the rally site to listen to what was on Trump supporters' minds.
"They actually deserve a senator that will listen to them, that actually cares about what they think, actually cares about what they’re going through,” Colom said ahead of the president's arrival for the evening event.
Colom's spokesperson later posted a photo on X, saying he had “chatted with folks in line for the Trump rally because Scott is running to represent ALL Mississippians.”
Trump's event kicks off a week of aggressive campaigning that will include more stops in states he won comfortably in 2024, including Texas, South Carolina and Iowa.
Top Democratic candidates and their surrogates were also greeting voters — more than 30 million of whom have already cast ballots — as they try to end Republicans' threadbare majority in the House, take over a Senate majority that was once thought secure for Republicans and end the GOP’s national advantage in state capitals.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats' 2024 presidential candidate, was campaigning in Wisconsin with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who faces Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Trump ally, for governor. Crowley would be the state’s first Black governor if elected to lead the battleground state.
“This is a tight race because the stakes are so high,” Harris said at the event billed as a “Women for Crowley” rally.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms were getting an assist from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and a likely 2028 presidential candidate, two days after Trump made his second October visit to the state.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed distanced himself from an ad created by a political action committee called Rebellion PAC that blames high grocery prices on U.S. support for Israel.
“This ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, said in a statement about the spot, which features a couple discussing U.S. support for Israel as they shop for groceries.
“Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” the woman says.
The ad had been condemned by U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.
The way to win Michigan “is not by blaming the high costs of our goods on the only Jewish homeland in the world,” Stevens wrote on X.
El-Sayed, who would be the country’s first Muslim senator, has denounced antisemitism while fiercely criticizing Israel for its military operations in Gaza — a position that has been a frequent point of attack for both Republicans and supporters of Israel in his party.
Vice President JD Vance traveled to Kansas on behalf of Sen. Roger Marshall, who finds himself in a tight contest with Democratic nominee and pastor Adam Hamilton. Hundreds of people were gathered inside the warehouse of a steel-fabricating company in north Topeka in a state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 1932.
Marshall told the crowd that Trump is on the ballot, even if his name doesn’t appear, because of how Democrats will thwart his agenda if they win control of Congress.
“Democrats are coming out like it’s a presidential year,” he said, calling for GOP enthusiasm to match Democrats’ energy.
Jace Sullivan, a 50-year-old electrician from Topeka who describes himself as “85% Republican,” said Trump supporters need to “circle the wagons” and get out to vote.
Wearing a red “JD Vance for President 2028" shirt, he said he thinks Trump is rightly working to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
“Gas prices are high and it does suck, but it’s a means to an end,” Sullivan said.
Earlier, Vance was in Belgrade, Montana, to campaign with Republican Aaron Flint, who is facing Democrat Sam Forstag in the race for the state’s 1st Congressional District, and Republican Senate candidate Kurt Alme.
Sen. Tim Scott, who serves as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Associated Press that GOP candidates are “closing very strongly” in races across the country, including South Carolina, which Trump is set to visit for the second time in as many weeks to stump for GOP Sen. Darline Graham.
“One of the reasons why we will be in the majority is because he has invested the time and the energy on the campaign trail,” Scott said on the sidelines of U.S. Rep. Russell Fry’s 3rd Annual Freedom Fry event.
But it's Trump's visit to Mississippi that perhaps brings the midterm landscape into the sharpest relief with just a week of campaigning left.
To be sure, Hyde-Smith, who is vying for her second full term, remains the favorite in a state Trump won three times by an average of nearly 20 percentage points.
But Colom, a local prosecutor who would make history as Mississippi's first Black senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction, is looking to parlay inflation, Trump's lagging popularity and Hyde-Smith's mistakes into an upset.
Colom has outpaced Hyde-Smith in fundraising since he launched his campaign last year, and he caught national attention this month with an ad that played off Hyde-Smith dismissing beef prices — driven higher by Trump's tariffs and fuel spikes resulting from the Iran conflict. The ad features Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner, saying that consumers “have so many other proteins to choose from,” followed by several characters, and then Colom, saying Mississippi should “ pick another senator instead. ”
Senate Democrats’ super PAC has been a late entry in the contest, with a $1.2 million investment. Mississippians have not chosen a new Democratic senator since 1947, and Democrats last won a Senate race there when that senator, the onetime segregationist John Stennis, won his last reelection in 1982.
In New York, meanwhile, one of the party’s most vulnerable House members pulled from Trump’s campaign playbook. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is in a tight race with Democrat Cait Conley in New York City’s northern suburbs, manned a McDonald’s drive-thru — mimicking something Trump did two years ago, even as Lawler has tried to emphasize his independence from the president.
Barrow reported from Atlanta and Colvin from New York. Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Laura Turbay in St. Paul, Minnesota; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Seung Min Kim in Belgrade, Montana, and Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Women for Crowley event Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., talks before President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena, in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena, in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
People watch as President Donald Trump's motorcade heads to a campaign rally in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump yells as he arrives on Air Force One at Frederick W. Smith Airport, in Memphis, Tenn., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, en route to a campaign rally in Mississippi. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Vice President JD Vance reacts after speaking at a campaign rally at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Belgrade, Mont. (Finn Gomez/Pool Photo via AP)
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, left, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, receives an embrace from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a campaign rally Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, at Lincoln Park Middle School in Duluth, Minn. (AP Photo/Erica Dischino)
President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at McMorran Place Sports and Entertainment Center, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, in Port Huron, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
