Almac Group, a Craigavon, UK-based contract development and manufacturing organization, has opened a 95,000-square-foot cold-storage facility at its global headquarters in Northern Ireland. The facility represents the completion of a £20 million ($27.5 million) investment in the company’s cold-chain-management capabilities.

The new facility adds to Almac’s existing global clinical supply and drug-product capabilities by using over 3,000 pallet spaces, including storage capacity of -15 degrees Celsius to -25 degrees Celsius, additional secondary production rooms in 2 degrees Celsius C to 8 degrees C Celsius, third-party logistics processing areas, and a clinical-labelling suite. Supplementary office space has also been included to accommodate an additional 100 new employees who will be recruited as a result of the expansion.

The expansion follows a recent announcement of £30-million ($41-million) investment for a new European campus based in Dundalk, Ireland. The Dundalk expansion includes a new quality-control laboratory, packaging facility for commercial drug products and a 79,000-square-foot distribution center in the European Union for clinical trial supply, all of which is scheduled to be operationally ready by January 2019.

Source: Almac Group