Pharma manufacturing news in brief
pharmafile | November 9, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â manufacturing and production newsÂ
Nephron earmarks $313m for new US facility, police break up a demonstration at Dr Reddy’s with tear gas, plus updates from SurModics, Lundbeck and Almac.
Nephron Pharmaceuticals has said it plans to invest $313 million in a new manufacturing facility in South Carolina, US, creating more than 700 jobs. The company, which specialises in generic respiratory drugs, already operates a plant in Orlando, Florida, but said it had opted for South Carolina because the space there offered the potential to expand in the future into biologics and vaccines.
Police have used tear gas on a crowd gathered outside a manufacturing facility owned by Dr Reddy’s Laboratories in India, which is facing industrial action by a large number of contract workers. The plant at Pydibhimavaram makes active pharmaceutical ingredients but production there is unaffected by the demonstrations, according to local news reports. The contractors are seeking higher wages and other benefits.
US drug delivery company SurModics is selling its pharmaceutical assets to German speciality chemicals specialist Evonik Industries, including a manufacturing and development facility located in Birmingham, Alabama, for $30m in cash. The transaction will also include SurModics Pharmaceuticals’ portfolio of products and services, its parenteral drug delivery technology platforms and a polymers business. Selling off the pharma assets will allow SurModics to focus on its core medical device and in vitro diagnostics business, said the firm.
Lundbeck has announced a recall of its antipsychotic medication Truxal (chlorprothixene), following the discovery of defective packages containing a different medicine called Notrilen (nortriptyline), an antidepressant. Around 7,000 packages of the faulty packs have been distributed, and may have been dispensed to consumers, according to the Danish Medicines Agency.
Northern Ireland’s Almac has said it plans to invest £4.5 million in new commercial-scale active pharmaceutical ingredient capacity at its manufacturing facility in Craigavon, with the money going on additional reactor vessels with cleanroom, product isolation and drying equipment that can be used to make high-potency APIs up to 600kg. The firm said it currently has six APIs and advanced chiral intermediates in Phase III clinical development.
Phil Taylor
Related Content
McLaren alliance to turbocharge GSK research
GlaxoSmithKline has turned to the engineering expertise of Formula 1 racing team McLaren in an …
Teva in the dock again for hepatitis link to propofol
Teva’s decision to shut down a manufacturing facility for the anaesthetic propofol has become a …
GE gets bigger in upstream bioprocessing with PAA Labs buy
General Electric unit GE Healthcare has continued to expand its life sciences business with an …
