Pharma manufacturing news in brief
pharmafile | July 6, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â BMS, Borregaard Synthesis, Colorcon, JHP Pharma, Saltigo, Sanofi-Aventis, Synthetech, Viropharma, univarÂ
New capital investments from Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Viropharma and Colorcon head up this round-up of developments in the pharmaceutical manufacturing space.
Pharmaceutical major Sanofi-Aventis is planning to build a new 35,000 sq.m. manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia to make drugs for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, primarily to serve the domestic and wider Middle Eastern market. The plant will be located in King Abdullah Economic City.
Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced a major revamp of its manufacturing site in East Syracuse, with 60 of 118 buildings at the site scheduled for demolition. Most have stood idle since BMS phased out penicillin production at the site in 2004, according to this report from the Post Standard newspaper. The intention is to redevelop the site into a biotech-style industrial campus, according to the company.
Pharmaceutical excipient specialist Colorcon says it is expanding a technical service laboratory near Sao Paulo, Brazil, with additional processing and formulation development capacity that will help its customers develop new granulations, multi-particulates and tablets. The upgrade includes two organic solvent process rooms to allow testing of the use of organic solvents in the preparation of finished dosage forms.
Viropharma has applied to the US Food and Drug Administration to upgrade its production of Cinryze (C1 esterase inhibitor [human]), its drug for hereditary angioedema, in order to meet rising demand for the product which was approved in October 2008. The filing seeks approval to double up the scale of its parallel chromatography production process for the drug, and Viropharma is hoping for a green light from the FDA before year-end.
Norway’s Borregaard Synthesis has decided to close down a facility in Ravenna, Italy, which manufactures catechol and hydroquinone, used in pharmaceuticals as well as other industrial applications such as flavours and fragrances. Around 40 staff will lose their jobs as a result. The primary reason for the closure is overcapacity in the global market for catechol, according to the firm.
German fine chemicals producer Saltigo GmbH has passed an FDA audit at its site in Leverkusen, clearing the way for the launch of a new active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) the company wants to supply to the US market.
Fine chemical distributor Univar is hoping to raise around $860 million via an initial public offering in the US. The company, which is a major supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates, said it intends to use proceeds from the offering to repay debt and for general corporate purposes
Albany, US-based pharmaceutical chemical producer Synthetech is looking at acquisitions or even a sale of the company in a bid to inject some growth into the business, which had sales of around $20 million in fiscal 2009. The company has retained financial advisor Brocair Partners to help explore its options.
Contract manufacturer JHP Pharma says it has been awarded a multi-year contract to produce an ophthalmic product scheduled for launch next year by an unnamed pharmaceutical company. JHP operates a 171,000 sq.ft. sterile manufacturing facility in Michigan, USA.
Phil Taylor
Related Content
Elekta and BMS partner for digital treatment for melanoma
Elekta and Bristol Myers Squibb have announced a pilot collaboration in which the companies plan …
BMS acquires Mirati Therapeutics for $4.8bn
Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and Mirati Therapeutics have announced that they have entered into a …
BMS shares new research and development  plans at the company’s R&D day
Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) recently held a Research and Development (R&D) Day in New York, …
