Swiss API manufacturer opens high-potency plant
pharmafile | August 31, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â API, Cerbios-PharmaÂ
Cerbios-Pharma SA of Switzerland has officially opened its new high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing plant in Barbengo, a district in the Swiss city of Lugano.
The API manufacturer said the new investment is the latest development in an expansion strategy in high-potency started back in 1996 “to follow the trend of the pharmaceutical industry towards low dose, highly selective active ingredients”.
Market research firm GBI Research said in a report on the sector published last year that the global high-potency API market will grow at a compound annual rate of 8.4% between 2009 and 2015, outstripping growth in other API categories.
The new plant consists of a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) preparative chromatography suite, synthesis, during and isolation units, warehousing, dispensing and repackaging facilities and a subterranean storage area for solvents and waste products.
There is also space available for additional expansions, either the installation of more production suites or “other technologies under development for optimising yields, time and consequently costs”.
Using the new unit, Cerbios-Pharma says it will be able to produce APIs in very low doses – down to the microgram level – thanks to the use of isolator units that protect the operator staff and prevent ingredient dust entering the environment during synthesis and manipulation.
The privately-held company, which makes both chemical and biologic ingredients, says it has made a series of investments at the plant since 1999 which have helped to increase turnover and profitability, and has also expanded the workforce by 56% over that period.
Phil Taylor
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