Supplier News: Afton, Piramal, Lonza & More
The latest from CDMOs, CMOs, and suppliers featuring Afton Scientific, Piramal Pharma Solutions, Lonza, Recipharm, Exela, Almac, KD Pharma and dsm-firmenich.
Formulation Development/Drug Product Manufacturing
* Afton Scientific Investing $200 M To Expand Sterile Injectable Mfg Facility
* Piramal Pharma Solutions Investing $80 M To Expand Sterile Injectable Mfg Facility
* Lonza Launches New Center of Excellence for Formulation Development & Encapsulation
* Recipharm Makes Investments In Formulation Development, Drug Product Mfg
* CDMOs Recipharm, Exela Form Strategic Alliance for Sterile Mfg
General
* Almac Investing $15 M To Expand Analytical Services
* KD Pharma Acquires dsm-firmenich’s Marine Lipids Business
Formulation Development/Drug Product Manufacturing
Afton Scientific Investing $200 M To Expand Sterile Injectable Mfg Facility
Afton Scientific, a CDMO of small-batch filling of injectables, plans to invest over $200 million to expand its manufacturing facility in Albemarle County, Virginia. The company provides aseptic fill-finish services for preclinical to commercial-scale manufacturing. The company received a majority investment from Arlington Capital Partners in January 2024.
Source: Virginia Office of the Governor
Piramal Pharma Solutions Investing $80 M To Expand Sterile Injectable Mfg Facility
Piramal Pharma Solutions, a CDMO of active pharmaceutical ingredients and drug products, has announced an $80-million investment plan to expand its site in Lexington, Kentucky, which specializes in sterile compounding, liquid filling, and lyophilization for sterile injectable drug products.
The expansion will equip the Lexington site with an additional 24,000 square feet of manufacturing space, a new laboratory, and machinery. Key additions include a new filling line, two commercial-size lyophilizers, a special capping machine, and an external vial washer. The Lexington site can manufacture 104 product batches per year (utilization at peak levels). Upon completion of the expansion in the first quarter of 2027, this capacity will increase to over 240 annual batches.
Source: Piramal Pharma Solutions
Lonza Launches New Center of Excellence for Formulation Development & Encapsulation
Lonza has opened a new Innovaform Accelerator in Colmar, France, which will serve as a Center of Excellence for developing and innovating capsule-based manufacturing and delivery services for oral and pulmonary administration.
Source: Lonza
Recipharm Makes Investments In Formulation Development, Drug Product Mfg
Recipharm, a CDMO of drug substances and drug products, is expanding its pharmaceutical development capabilities to bolster its services for early- and late- stage product development, including clinical trial materials supply at small and pilot scales as well as commercial technologies.
Recipharm’s Center of Excellence for small molecules in Bengaluru, India, is expanding with a new lab for sterile product development. This is in addition to new extractables and leachables, nitrosamines, and elemental impurities laboratories. In addition, recent investments at its sites in Bengaluru and Zwickau, Germany, include advanced material characterization equipment, a compression and compaction simulator, a mini-pactor for dry granulation, a pilot-scale capsule filler, and a small-scale tablet press.
Additionally, Recipharm has also strengthened its preclinical, clinical and pilot-scale sterile development capabilities for both small and large molecules, including liquid vials, prefilled syringes, blow–fill–seal, and lyophilized products. Investments include the establishment of a development lab for sterile formulations for small molecules in Bengaluru, the installation of a GMP VarioSys line for vials and prefilled syringes at its site in Wasserburg, Germany, and a GMP LAB+ equipment at its site in Kaysersberg, France.
Source: Recipharm
CDMOs Recipharm, Exela Form Strategic Alliance for Sterile Mfg
Recipharm, a CDMO of drug substances and drug products, and Exela Pharma Sciences, a Lenoir, North Carolina-based CDMO of vaccines and injectables, have entered an agreement to enhance Recipharm’s sterile manufacturing capabilities in the US.
This collaboration will provide Recipharm with access to Exela’s manufacturing facility in Lenoir, North Carolina, which manufactures sterile injectable pharmaceuticals in vial and prefilled syringe formats. Exela’s facility enables Recipharm to expand its sterile manufacturing capacity in the US, offering the availability of over 100 million units of production capacity. The site is extending into producing highly targeted biopharmaceutical drugs, such as antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), GLP-1 drugs and other sterile products, such as vaccines and biologics. Exela’s manufacturing capabilities include automatic visual inspection, automated packaging, and auto-injector assembly.
Recipharm will add to Exela’s capabilities by offering its analytical capabilities, commercial expertise, and manufacturing science and technology support. Additionally, ReciBioPharm, its biologics division, will contribute to the collaboration with its advanced therapeutic medicinal products capabilities.
Source: Recipharm
General
Almac Investing $15 M To Expand Analytical Services
Almac Group, a Craigavon, UK-based CDMO of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and drug products, has announced an £11 million ($15 million) investment to expand its global analytical services capabilities.
Construction of new laboratory space at the company’s global headquartersite in Craigavon increases overall capacity, and additional upgrades and development of existing labs across all sites will allow the company to increase its existing global analytical employee headcount by over 100 in the next 12 months. Almac employs over 700 analysts working in GMP laboratories across five locations: Craigavon, UK; Charnwood, UK; Souderton, Pennsylvania; Athlone, Ireland and Dundalk, Ireland.
Almac has added a number of specialized instrumentation and techniques across several service lines, including chromatography, spectroscopy, and biologics. The recent introduction of a Raman TRS100 system also offers a faster assay of tablets, capsules, and other dosage forms. Additional investment in physical sciences equipment provides enhanced capability to support the company’s new spray-drying offering from its site in Charnwood, UK.
Almac also made a multi-million-dollar digitization upgrade across all sites, including further investment in Almac’s existing laboratory information management system.
Source: Almac
KD Pharma Acquires dsm-firmenich’s Marine Lipids Business
The KD Pharma Group, a CDMO of active pharmaceutical ingredients, nutritional lipids, and finished dosage forms, has completed its acquisition of dsm-firmenich’s marine lipids business. The transaction was announced in July (July 2024) and has now successfully been closed after receiving all regulatory approvals.
The transaction includes dsm-firmenich’s MEG-3 business for the food & beverage, dietary supplement, and pharma markets, together with production facilities in Piura, Peru, and Mulgrave, Canada. The MEG-3 business represented approximately EUR 170 million ($185 million) in sales in 2023, with approximately 200 employees who will transfer to KD Pharma.
With approximately 710 employees, the expanded KD Pharma Group now has seven manufacturing facilities in the UK, Norway, Germany, Canada, Peru, and the US.
Source: KD Pharma Group
