Manufacturing news in brief
pharmafile | April 6, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | NIB, Valeant, Warner Chilcott, baxter
This week’s round-up of recent developments in the pharmaceutical manufacturing arena sees a new facility build for Ireland’s HKPB and a closure for Warner-Chilcott, while Valeant buys production capacity in Brazil.
China’s Erye Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of USA-based biopharmaceutical firm, NeoStem, has won approval in China to manufacture the active pharmaceutical ingredient cloxacillin sodium, a drug used in anti-infective products such as GlaxoSmithKline’s Cloxapen. Erye says it intends to sell the generic into the domestic Chinese market. The firm won approval to market its first generic – the gastrointestinal drug omeprazole – in China last November.
Contract manufacturer Syncom Healthcare says has signed a series of manufacturing contracts with Indian drugmakers to make use of capacity at its facility in Dehradun, according to an official communication to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The firm also says it has forged an alliance with fellow Indian contract manufacturer Kilitch Drugs aimed at expanding its business. Syncom is predicting 90-100 crores ($20m-$22m) in turnover in the 2010-2011 financial year.
HKPB Scientific, a commercial spinoff of the University of Limerick in Ireland, has said it plans to set up a facility in County Tipperary to manufacture its product range, which includes a bone cement used for hip-replacement procedures and a coating technology for medical devices designed to prevent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) transmission. The move is expected to generate up to 200 jobs during the next five years.
US drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals has bought a privately-owned Brazilian branded generics and over-the-counter medicines company for $28 million and will also pay a further $28 million for a 165,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in the country. The facility can be used to produce solids, semi-solids and liquids, according to Valeant, which added the deal does away with the need to use contract manufacturers for its production needs, boosting its margins.
Warner Chilcott, which bought Procter & Gamble’s pharmaceuticals business for $3.1 billion last year, has said it will shut down the former P&G manufacturing facility in Mason, Ohio, by the end of August, with the loss of more than 160 jobs. Layoffs will begin at the end of May.
Baxter International says it has successfully addressed compliance problems identified at one of the company’s plants in Belgium by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January. The FDA sent the company a warning letter about production processes at the plant, which is used to make Baxter’s plasma-derived drug Gammagard (immune globulin intravenous), used to treat immunological disorders. The company said in January that there were no safety issues associated with the problem, which related to its procedures for handling clogged filters.
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