Boehringer closing Petersburg API plant
pharmafile | September 25, 2012 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â API, Boehringer, Petersburg, chemicalsÂ
Boehringer Ingelheim has decided to close down one of its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facilities in the US because it is currently working with excess production capacity.
The Synthesis 1 facility in Petersburg, Virginia, is scheduled to be closed in the middle of 2013 with between 80 and 100 of its 340 workers expected to lose their jobs, according to local news reports. Two other plants in the city – called Synthesis 3 and Synthesis 5 – will remain open.
The Synthesis 1 facility is the oldest on Boehringer’s Petersburg site, having been opened in the 1970s. As is often the case with older plants they require higher levels of maintenance and upkeep to maintain operations than the more modern counterparts.
In a statement the company said it was ‘not feasible or necessary’ to keep it the unit in use, as the products it makes – which include ingredients for blood pressure drugs – can be transferred to other units in Boehringer’s manufacturing network.
An article on Petersburg’s Progress-Index website notes that many of the details associated with the closure of the unit are not complete, and that in the coming months Boehringer will be examining various factors such as production commitments, decommissioning of equipment, and evaluating its resource requirements.
The Petersburg site is part of Boehringer Ingelheim Chemicals and produces drug substances and intermediates for the pharmaceutical industry, as well as serving as the company’s main fine chemicals business unit in the US.
Phil Taylor
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