Pharma facility news in brief
pharmafile | January 7, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | manufacturing, pharma
GlaxoSmithKline has launched a new website and Twitter account to inform the public about progress with its £350 million ($574 million) biopharmaceutical facility in Ulverston, UK, which is due to come online in 2021. The plant will be the first new GSK manufacturing facility to be built in the UK for almost 40 years. The company is planning to hold a series of public meetings in February and March to provide updates on the plans for the new unit.
US biopharma company Ampio has taken a 10-year lease on a facility in Denver, Colorado, that will house a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) manufacturing unit, R&D facility and office space. The company said it intends to spend around $7 million fitting out the unit, which will be used to complete development of its Ampion (aspartyl-alanyl diketopiperazine; DA-DKP) treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee and manufacture supplies for the company’s Phase III registration studies, which are due to generate results later this year.
Teva has abandoned plans to build a $141 million active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plan in India as part of a restructuring exercise that seeks to slash $2 billion off its costs by 2017 and result in the loss of 5,000 jobs. The company – which is facing generic competition to its big-selling multiple sclerosis treatment Copaxone (glatiramer acetate) – has said it wants to achieve around half the cost savings from its sourcing and manufacturing operations.
Astellas Pharma has agreed the transfer of one of its manufacturing facilities in Japan to generic drugmaker Nichi-Iko Pharmaceutical as part of a streamlining of its production network. Under the terms of the succession agreement Nichi-Iko will manufacture Astellas products made at the Fuji plant under an outsourcing contract. The deal was finalised in December and is due to complete on 1 April. For Nichi-Iko, the expansion is designed to help it meets its objective of breaking into the top ten global generic drugmakers by 2016.
Taiwan’s ScinoPharm has completed construction of a $113 million API manufacturing and process development centre in Changshu, China, that will supply both the Chinese and international markets. The plant is claimed to be the first in China to be built expressly to comply with the country’s new Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards – which came into effect in early 2011 – and four APIs made there have already been certified by the Chinese Food and Drug Administration.
India’s Shasun Pharmaceuticals has put its API production facility in Vizag up for sale, despite saying a few months ago that it was a key part of its API growth strategy. Shasun also produces APIs at a recently completed API plant in Cuddalore, a unit in Puducherry and a facility in Dudley, UK. The greenfield Vizag plant – which suffered some delays in set-up and saw its construction and validation costs swell from an expected 100 crore to 130 crore ($21 million) – was completed in early 2012. A second phase to add finished dose formulation capacity had reached the planning stage.
Merck KGaA subsidiary Allergopharma has started construction of a €40 million ($55 million) manufacturing facility in Reinbek, near Hamburg, that will help support expanded sales in new markets such as China. Allergopharma makes products for the diagnosis and treatment of conditions such as hay fever and allergic asthma – a market growing at 5%-10% a year – and says the new unit is due to be ready in 2016.
Phil Taylor
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