Supplier News: AGC Inc., Recipharm, Aenova & More
The latest from CDMOs, CMOs, and suppliers featuring AGC Inc., WeylChem, Abzena, Recipharm, Catalent, Aenova, ApiJect, Tjoapack, Bushu Pharmaceuticals, and Almac.
Chemicals/Chemical API Manufacturing
AGC Inc. To Invest $100 M To Expand Fine Chemicals CDMO
AGC Inc., a Tokyo, Japan-based manufacturer of glass, chemicals, and high-tech materials, has announced plans to invest $100 million to expand AGC Pharma Chemicals Europe (APCE), an AGC subsidiary and synthetic pharmaceutical CDMO.
A new building with a total floor area of 7,500 m2 will be constructed on the company’s site to increase current production capacity by 30%. The expansion will include the introduction of facilities for highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs). The new facility is scheduled to start operation in the first half of 2024.
Source: AGC Inc.
WeylChem Puts $8-M Expansion into Operations
The WeylChem Group of Companies, a Frankfurt, Germany-based chemicals manufacturing group, has put into operation a new multi-purpose custom manufacturing plant at its site in Lamotte, France. The company invested EUR 7 million ($8 million) in the expansion. The project consisted of an overhaul of an existing production line by adding an acid-proof 4-m2 Hastelloy filter dryer, a thin-film evaporator, and a 10-m3 stainless-steel reactor. As a result, temperatures of up to 200°C and a service pressure of up to 8 bars can now be reached.
Source: WeylChem
Biologics Manufacturing
Recipharm Completes Acquisitions of Arranta Bio, Vibalogics
Recipharm has completed the acquisitions of Vibalogics, a CDMO of oncolytic viruses, viral vector vaccines, and viral vectors, and Arranta Bio, a CDMO of live biotherapeutic products and products of the human microbiome. Recipharm had announced the acquisitions in February (February 2022).
The acquisitions reflect Recipharm’s strategy of building its presence in biologics, with a particular focus on drug-substance manufacturing of advanced therapy medicinal products. Vibalogics is a manufacturer of oncolytic viruses, viral vaccines and gene therapies and provides process and analytical development, manufacturing, testing and fill–finish services from facilities in Cuxhaven, Germany, and Boxborough, Massachusetts.
Arranta Bio is progressing the first build-out phase of laboratory and GMP capacity at a second commercial-ready site in Boxborough, Massachusetts, which is slated to be completed by mid-2022.
Mark Bamforth, CEO of Arranta Bio, will be stepping down as CEO, and his role will be taken by David Stevens, currently the company’s President and Chief Operating Officer.
Source: Recipharm
Abzena Raises $65 M To Fund Expansions
Abzena, a contract manufacturer of biologics and antibody drug conjugates, has raised $65 million to fund expansions in manufacturing capacity for both clinical and commercial supply. In addition to building out existing and new manufacturing facilities, the funding will be used to augment drug-discovery and cell-line offerings, add fill–finish capabilities and complete a new biological testing laboratory.
Abzena plans to open a new manufacturing facility in Sanford, North Carolina, in the fourth quarter of 2022, its sixth site in its global network.
Source: Abzena
Formulation Development/Drug-Product Manufacturing
Catalent Expands Mfg Suites at Missouri Facility
Catalent has completed the installation and commissioning of four new high-throughput “high-bay” manufacturing suites at its facility in Kansas City, Missouri, to increase its capacity and capabilities for producing oral solid dose forms.
The project includes the installation of a new Gerteis roller compactor alongside stationary bin blenders, a capsule weight sorter, and a Syntegon high-throughput encapsulator capable of producing up to 156,000 capsules per hour of either powder or minitablets dose forms. Additionally, a new automated capsule vision inspection system has also been installed and commissioned.
Catalent’s Kansas City facility provides a range of services for oral solid dosage forms, from formulation development and analytical testing to clinical and commercial-scale manufacture. The site also offers clinical packaging services, including clinical supply management, package engineering, clinical manufacturing, primary and secondary packaging, global distribution and logistics, and return/destruction services.
Source: Catalent
Aenova Investing $11 M To Expand Highly Potent Drug Mfg
Aenova is investing EUR 10 million ($11 million) for a new building for the production of highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs) at its site in Regensburg, Germany. The new four-story building with a total building area of over 4,000 m² will include not only bulk production and packaging of highly potent drugs, but also the associated laboratories, development, warehouses and social rooms. After the planned start of operations at the beginning of 2023, the manufacturing capacities can be increased in volume by significantly more than one billion tablets and capsules.
The foundation slab for the new building was poured in March 2022. The new building is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2022 and occupation in the fall of 2022. This will be followed by the installation of the laboratories and the new GMP area. Additional customer orders can be produced from 2023.
Source: Aenova
ApiJect Opens New Technology Development Center
ApiJect Systems, a Stamford, Connecticut-based provider of prefilled syringes, has opened the ApiJect Technology Development Center in the greater Orlando, Florida, area.
The new facility is devoted to working with pharmaceutical companies to design, engineer, and test how to fill–finish their injectable drug products in a new type of scalable, single-dose prefilled injector that is made using the ApiJect Platform, which brings together blow-fill-seal (BFS) manufacturing process with attachable components, including needle hubs.
The facility is supported by a public–private partnership with the US government.
Source: ApiJect Systems
Packaging
Tjoapack Completes $11-M Packaging Facility Expansion
Tjoapack, a North Brabant, Netherlands-based contract packaging organization, has completed an EUR 10-million-plus ($11-million-plus) expansion at its Etten-Leur facility in the Netherlands.
Tjoapack, which specializes in primary, secondary packaging of oral solids and injectables, has doubled its capacity with the addition of 10 new production rooms and increased the size of its Netherlands facility from 8,400 square meters to 11,500 square meters.
Three new production lines have been added, as well as a fully automated packaging line for vials, with the capacity of packing 12 million vials per year. There are also two new high-speed production lines for oral solids, capable of packing over 500 blisters per minute each. The Tjoapack Netherlands facility now has a total of 18 packaging lines for blisters, vials, and bottles.
Tjoapack says it also has plans for a new packaging line for pre-filled syringes and aims to purchase more blister machines, which will increase capacity further by the end of the year.
Source: Tjoapack
General
Bushu Pharmaceuticals Expands Packaging Ops
Sanwa Kagaku Kenkyusho, a Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan-based subsidiary of Suzuken, a pharmaceutical wholesaler, has agreed to transfer the business of its Fukushima plant, which serves as a manufacturing plant for the company’s own solid agents and as one of its contract manufacturing plants, to Bushu Pharmaceuticals, a Saitama, Japan-based CDMO,
Expanding from its two facility structure, Bushu Pharma established the Kazo Packaging Center in April 2021. The facility sits within the distribution center of Chuo Unyu Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Suzuken, and is used for inspection, labeling, and packaging. The addition of the Fukushima Factory will further expand the company’s production to a total of four facilities. Sanwa Kagaku’s products currently produced at the plant will continue to be produced at the facility through a manufacturing consignment agreement to Bushu Pharma.
Source: Bushu Pharmaceuticals
General
Almac Investing in NMR Instrumentation
Almac Sciences, a member of the Almac Group, is investing £500,000 ($653,000) in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instrumentation at its global headquarters in Craigavon, UK.
Almac’s investment includes the addition of a second 500 MHz NMR system, which has been added to further expand the current service offerings within Almac Sciences’ cGMP facility.
Source: Almac
