Manufacturing facilities news in brief
pharmafile | October 7, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Capsugel, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Pfizer, Purdue Pharma, Warner Chilcott
New facilities, plant shutdowns and layoffs in the pharma manufacturing sector.
Pfizer has said it will close down a manufacturing plant in Sydney, Australia, with the loss of around 140 jobs. The West Ryde facility makes solid oral dosage form medicines for human and animal use and is due to cease operations in 2015. Most job losses will not take place until 2015, said a spokesperson for Pfizer Australia, who noted that a sterile injectable facility in Perth will be unaffected by the restructuring. The closure has come about because of “patent expiry of a number of key medicines, and the need to achieve greater efficiencies in our manufacturing operations”, said the company.
Warner Chilcott has said it will lay off 88 workers from a manufacturing facility in Rockaway, New Jersey, in the wake of the approval of its $8.5 billion takeover by Actavis last week, reports NJ.com. The companies said when the merger was first announced in May that it would provide annual cost-savings opportunities of around $400 million. The layoffs will occur by 30 November, according to the report. As an antitrust condition of the takeover the combined company has been forced to divest four generic products to rival Amneal Pharmaceuticals.
Contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies has officially opened a new mammalian cell culture facility in Teesside, UK, for the production of biologic drugs. The plant, which is already producing material for a client, has initially been commissioned with 200L and 1000L bioreactors, with a 2000L bioreactor already planned for 2014, according to the CMO. It makes extensive use of disposable technologies for both upstream and downstream operations. Fujifilm Diosynth has invested around £30 million ($48m) over the last here years at the Teesside plant and at its site in Research Triangle Park in the US.
Purdue Pharma has said it plans to build a $59 million manufacturing plant in Durham, North Carolina, creating 100 jobs over the next three years. The 120,000 sq. ft. facility is due to come online in 2016, when it will employ around 100 workers. Purdue already operates a 240,000 sq. ft. fill-and-finish facility in Wilson, NC, which employs around 180,000 staff and opened in 2000. Its other manufacturing plant is in Totowa, New Jersey, which acts as a back-up to the main Wilson plant and also provides laboratory services.
Capsugel has upgraded three finished dosage form plants in the US and Europe in response to ‘growing demand’ for hormonal and high-potency compounds in soft gel manufacturing. Its Ploermel facility in France now has increased containment capacity, with a new high precision dosing system and high-speed capsule printing. Meanwhile, at Livingston in the UK, the firm has expanded its laboratory space, equipment and analytical scientists – including a new capsule filling and sealing machine – and at Greenwood in the US, the company has commissioned and validated a new commercial scale liquid-fill encapsulation unit for pharmaceutical applications. Capsugel has also set up commercial production capacity for solid lipid pellet (SLP) formulations.
Phil Taylor
Related Content
EC approves Pfizer’s Emblaveo for multidrug-resistant infection treatment
Pfizer has announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorisation for Emblaveo (aztreonam-avibactam) …
Pfizer’s Velsipity approved by EC for ulcerative colitis treatment
Pfizer has announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorisation for Velsipity (etrasimod) …
EC approves Pfizer’s Elrexfio for relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma
Pfizer has announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted conditional marketing authorisation for Elrexfio …
