Chop and change for pharma production facilities
pharmafile | September 28, 2009 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | AZ, Teva
Generic drugmaker Teva will close one of its production facilities in the Czech Republic by the end of 2009 with a loss of around 400 jobs, according to the Polish Market Review newsletter.
The company agreed to divest a number of products sold in the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries in order to avoid antitrust issues with the European Commission resulting from its recently completed merger with Barr Laboratories. Offsetting that reduction, the company is investing 40 million euros in its main Czech manufacturing unit in Brno with the addition of around 300 staff.
US biotechnology firm Morphotek, a subsidiary of Eisai of Japan, has said it plans to spend upwards of $80 million constructing a 60,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania to manufacture clinical supplies of its new monoclonal antibody-based drug candidates. The company currently relies on contract manufacturers to make its MAbs, including lead compound farletuzumab which is in phase II testing in ovarian cancer patients.
Canadian contract manufacturer Patheon has opened a new pharmaceutical development services (PDS) manufacturing site for investigational medical products within its existing manufacturing facility in Ferentino, Italy, in a move which doubles its capacity to make clinical trial materials. The unit is designed to take on early-stage drug candidates, which will ‘feed’ into its two larger Italian manufacturing plants as they progress through the development process. The facility will be dedicated to the manufacture of sterile products including aseptically filled, terminally sterilised liquids and freeze-drying.
German contract manufacturer Vetter Pharma it gearing up to open its first US production facility, located in Chicago, Illinois, at the end of the year. Vetter said the $12 million, 25,000 sq. ft. unit will be able to aseptically fill very small quantities of products, providing “faster and more streamlined product delivery and customer service” to its North American customers.
AstraZeneca is cutting jobs at a plant in Massachusetts, US, citing increased competition for its asthma drug Pulmicort Respules (budesonide) from generic rival Apotex. The firm told the Boston Globe that 113 staff would go out of 500 employees at the plant, which also makes other products including a liquid formulation of the gastrointestinal drug Nexium (esomeprazole).
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals of India is planning to construct a manufacturing facility in Buenos Aires in Argentina to make cancer drugs, with an annual production capacity of around 1 million vials. The plant will be operated on a loan-licensee basis – with Glenmark providing the infrastructure and manufacturing carries out by a third party, according to an Economic Times report.
Bayer HealthCare has said will invest more than $100 million over the next four years to upgrade its manufacturing capabilities in Berkeley, California, in order to produce future formulations of its haemophilia drug Kogenate (recombinant coagulation Factor VIII). Bayer had said it was looking at a number of options for Kogenate production, including making it at one of its other production units or outsourcing production to a contract manufacturer. The Berkeley unit has made the haemophilia treatment since its US launch in 1993.
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