Pharma manufacturing news in brief
pharmafile | June 28, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â pharma manufacturing newsÂ
Abbott delays closure of Canadian facility, West Pharma starts a new build in China, plus updates from Vetter, Pharmadule and Hovione.
Abbott Laboratories has delayed the planned closure of a manufacturing facility in Canada for infant formula, thanks to increased demand for the product it manufactures. The Brockville plant had been due to close in 2012 with the loss of 150 jobs, because of a shift in demand for infant formula in recloseable bottles, which the plant does not have the capability to manufacture. But short-term demand for the formula made at the plant has provided a stay of 12 to 18 months on the closure, said Abbott.
Packaging company West Pharmaceutical Services has broken ground on a second plastic components manufacturing plant in China, which will start operations at the beginning of 2013. The compression moulding plant will cover 125,000 sq.ft. and is adjacent to West’s injection moulding facility, which opened in 2009. The decision to open a second plant comes on the back of “an exciting period of growth” for the company in the Asia-Pacific region, said chief executive Donald Morel.
Contract manufacturing organisation Vetter Pharma International has added three lyophilisers at its facility in Ravensburg, Germany, nearly doubling its freeze-drying capacity. The site will be able to produce up to 24 million lyophilised dosage units a year, and this will help it meet anticipated future demand for aseptically-filled biologics and other sensitive compounds. In the last three years, more than 30% of all novel drugs approved in the US were lyophilised, said the company in a statement.
Pharmadule AB of Sweden, which constructs modular manufacturing facilities for the pharmaceutical sector, has been acquired by commercial partner Morimatsu Industry of Japan. Morimatsu has a unit which makes process skids and modules for the pharma, cosmetics and food and beverage industries, complementing Pharmadule’s range of modular manufacturing buildings. “This is the first time a supplier can offer a truly integrated production service to its clients, all fabricated in the same workshop”, said Daniel Ding, the chief executive of the now-renamed Pharmadule Morimatsu.
Portugal’s Hovione has filed a patent for a newly-developed dry powder inhaler, called XCaps, which it claims is unique in the pulmonary inhalation market. “Lung fractions in excess of 70% have been achieved, from a device which only requires two steps to inhalation and which only has two components plus a dust cover,” said the company. That makes it well suited to applications where minimal training of patients in inhaler use is desirable. This is the second DPI developed by Hovione after its TwinCaps product, which was launched in Daiichi Sankyo’s Inavir (laninamivir) influenza product last year in Japan.
Phil Taylor
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