Pfizer, UCB sell plants to smaller drugmakers
pharmafile | May 30, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Pfizer, UCB
This week saw two pharma companies offload US manufacturing facilities to contract manufacturing organisations (CMOs), with Pfizer selling a plant to UPM and Unither Pharmaceuticals buying a unit run by UCB.
Pfizer’s 500,000 sq. ft. plant in Bristol, Tennessee, is being transferred to Baltimore-based UPM Pharma, which will gain a sizeable increase in its ability to service commercial-scale manufacturing contracts.
The Bristol facility – formerly owned by King Pharma which was bought by Pfizer in 2010 – specialises in capsules and tablets as well as semi-solid dosage forms like creams and ointments, as well as capabilities for pilot plant scale-up, analytical and microbial testing and production of high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs).
Bristol was earmarked for closure in 2011, with Pfizer saying it intended to shut down production there by 2014 and eliminate 130 jobs. The new owner has said there will be some redundancies but many of the current workers will keep their positions.
The plant has an annual output capacity of 3.5 billion tablets and 680 million capsules, and takes UPM to another level in its ability to serve clients “from early-stage formulation development to commercialisation along with all associated comprehensive lab support”, commented CMO’s president James Gregory.
As part of the terms of purchase, UPM will manufacture Pfizer products currently made in the facility for a period of two years.
Meanwhile, the UCB deal involves the transfer of ownership of its facility in Rochester, New York, to Unither, along with an agreement that the CMO will continue to make UCB’s products or six years.
Rochester specialises in liquid pharmaceutical and employs around 300 staff, of whom the contracts will in the main transfer to the new owner. The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.
Unither said it intends to install ‘as soon as possible’ blow-fill seal capabilities for sterile product manufacturing and stick-pack technologies in the Rochester plant “in order to provide … clients or US prospects with locally-made products”.
Phil Taylor
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