Pharma manufacturing news in brief
pharmafile | April 17, 2012 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Intertek and Pharmatek Labs, Jubilant, Penn Pharma
Raw material issues disrupting pharma production in Pakistan, Jubilant opens a new plant in Gujarat, plus updates from Penn Pharma, Intertek and Pharmatek Labs.
Patients in Pakistan are facing potential shortages of more than 800 pharmaceutical products because delays in allocating raw material quotas by the federal government are playing havoc with production, according to the American Business Council. The organisation, which represents a number of locally operating drugmakers such as Pfizer, Abbott Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson, said the situation could lead to an influx in counterfeit and spurious medicines and endanger lives. The Pakistan government has blamed the delays on disruption caused by devolution of ministries under the 18th Constitution Amendment of 2010, which transformed the country into a parliamentary republic.
Jubilant Life Sciences has inaugurated a new manufacturing facility in Gujarat, India, that will be used to manufacture vitamin B3 and 3-cyanopyridine, an intermediate used in the manufacturing of various pharmaceutical compounds. The new plant will make Jubilant the second-largest vitamin B3 manufacturer worldwide, and the largest in India. It is sited on a 300-acre Special Economic Zone (SEZ), set up with the support of the Gujarati government, which may also house additional facilities in future.
Drug development and manufacturing services company Penn Pharma has appointed Jerome Detreille as senior director of new business development. Detreille joins the company from Catalent Pharma Solutions where he headed up a European sales and marketing team. Penn said he would be integral to the success of its manufacturing plant in South Wales, which is benefitting from a £14 million investment in new high containment facilities.
Intertek says it has started offering cGMP cell based assay services at its facility in Manchester, UK, to support product release and stability studies for biologic drugs. The assays determine the biological activity or potency of a drug by measuring the product’s physiological response. “The launch of cell based assays in Europe further demonstrates Intertek’s commitment to support developers and producers of biopharmaceuticals with essential and advanced testing services,” said Dr Andrew Swift, executive vice president of Intertek Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals.
US contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Pharmatek Laboratories has expanded its liquid encapsulation capacity with the purchase of an automated liquid filling and banding system from Qualicaps. Pharmatek said the investment would allow it to increase the ‘rate and scale’ of liquid fill productions, and help the company be more cost effective on large-scale projects. “More efficient production of larger scale batches helps us to better support our clients through their late-stage phase IIB clinical studies,” commented chief executive Jeffrey Bibbs.
Phil Taylor
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