Merck invests in one plant, DSM shutters another
pharmafile | January 21, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | API, DSM, Merck KGaA, ingredients, intermediates
German chemical and pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA is planning to set up a plant to make inorganic salts used in the production of pharmaceutical ingredients with an investment of around 30 million euros.
The plant will be located at Merck’s site in Darmstadt and, once completed, will boost the firm’s production capacity for inorganic salts by about 50% in a response to “growing global demand” for this type of material.
Inorganic salts are used in the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and excipients, as well as chemicals used in biopharmaceutical production processes, food additives and laboratory reagents.
Demand for inorganic salts in pharma is being driven by “high requirements placed on quality and product safety for final pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical formulations,” said Merck in a statement.
Merck said the plant is scheduled to begin production in the middle of next year and will house 70 employees who will move to the new facility from other areas of its inorganic chemical production division.
The company added that this is one of its largest chemical investments worldwide after the construction of its new materials research centre which will open in Darmstadt later this year,
DSM calls it a day
Meanwhile, across the border in the Netherlands, DSM has said it will close its Specialty Intermediates unit in Sittard-Geleen by the end of this year in the face of price and margin declines caused by low-cost competition from rival Asian manufacturers.
The facility manufactures and sells intermediates for the pharmaceutical, food and automotive industries and employs 37 people who will be offered alternative employment within DSM or made redundant, according to the company.
A number of DSM’s intermediates production plants were closed in 2007 and others integrated with other DSM plants in an attempt to make the business unit financially healthy, but ultimately the company was unable to return the business to profitability.
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