Roche opens $271m formulations centre
pharmafile | November 29, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Roche, manufacturingÂ
Roche has officially opened a 250 million Swiss franc ($271m) R&D centre in Switzerland that will be used to develop pharmaceutical formulations for new active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and manufacture clinical trial materials.
Construction of the five-storey facility at Roche’s Wettsteinallee site near Basel started in early 2009 and has been completed on schedule, said the firm, which noted that the plant will employ around 100 staff who will be moved from other locations around the company’s network.
The technical R&D centre site concentrates on developing and manufacturing solid and liquid dosage forms for new active substances, including tablets, capsules and injectable dosage forms in vials and pre-filled syringes.
Speaking at the building’s inauguration ceremony, Roche chief executive Severin Schwan said that “finding the safest and most efficient formulation for an active ingredient is a key part of the drug development process”.
Giving an example, Schwann pointed to Roche’s recently approved melanoma drug Zelboraf (vemurafenib), which demanded a highly innovative formulation in order to present the API in a soluble, stable form that could be absorbed by the body.
Zelboraf was approved in August in the US as a treatment for patients with metastatic or unresectable melanoma, and is also pending approval in Europe, with analysts predicting annual sales of nearly $1 billion by 2015.
Schwann noted that the opening is a reaffirmation of Roche’s commitment to the Basel region, where it employs around 9,000 of its total headcount of 80,000 workers around the globe.
The completion of the R&D centre – known as building 07 – is also boost to the Roche workforce, which has been suffering considerable reductions in keeping with the trend seen in many other large pharmaceutical companies.
Last year, Roche implemented a major cost-reduction programme which included plans to reduce its headcount by 5,000.
Phil Taylor
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