Pharma manufacturing news in brief
pharmafile | June 14, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â pharma manufacturingÂ
Baxter loses first heparin lawsuit, Pfizer plans a branded generics push in China, plus there’s updates from GSK, Hovione and Lonza.
Baxter International has lost the first case in its ongoing legal dispute over the contaminated heparin scandal which led to dozens of patient deaths in 2007 and 2008. The drugmaker has been forced to pay $625,000 to the estate of Steven Johansen, who died in December 2007 after taking heparin adulterated with over-sulphated chondroitin sulphate (OSCS). Also cited in the case was Scientific Protein Laboratories, which supplied the heparin API used in Baxter’s product.
Pfizer is planning to set up a joint venture to develop and manufacture branded generic drugs in China with local company Zheijiang Hisun Pharmaceuticals, as part of a continuing drive into what it refers to as “established products”, as well as a push into emerging markets. The move comes in response to rising demand for high-quality branded generics in China, where at present 60% of all drugs sold are unbranded. Whether the established products division remains in-house is up for debate, however, with speculation mounting that Pfizer may be planning to spin-off or sell the business in the same way as it divested capsule unit Capsugel earlier this year.
GlaxoSmithKline is planning to boost the headcount at its US manufacturing facility in Hamilton, Montana, thanks to the continued growth of its cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix, according to local newspaper reports. Hamilton is the primary production site in the GSK group for MPL, an adjuvant that is used in the formation of Cervarix and other vaccines in order to boost their effectiveness. Last year the plant let 19 workers go due to a surplus of MPL, but since demand for the ingredient has increased thanks to Cervarix’s approval in new markets.
Portuguese active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturer Hovione has teamed up with Particle Sciences Inc on a project aimed at speeding up the development of poorly water-soluble drugs. The two companies say they will work together on ways to improve the bioavailability of APIs which exhibit low aqueous solubility and high permeability according to the biopharmaceutics classification system (BCS). PSI will concentrate on developing the solubilisation process and resulting drug product for clients, and Hovione will manage the scale-up and industrialisation of the spray drying process.
Swiss contract manufacturer Lonza has said it will invest CHF 10 million ($11.9 million) in its Tuas production facility in Singapore in order to add 1,858 sq.m. of laboratory space. The new capacity will support “cell line construction, upstream and downstream process development, and a broad range of analytical services” central to Lonza’s biological mammalian custom manufacturing business. The facility is expected to come on-line in the first half of 2012.
Phil Taylor
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