Piramal To Add Hormone Capacity

Piramal | Healthcare will invest $11 million at its Morpeth, UK facility to triple its production capacity for hormonal products, including contraceptive pills and hormone replacement therapies. The expansion, which has been commissioned in response to customer demand and new business gains, will see the site’s annual production capacity increase by around 2 billion tablets.
 
The expansion suite will house formulation, packaging coating and tableting equipment. Construction is slated to begin at the end of 2013, and should wrap up within 12 months; full operations are expected to begin after a six-month validation period. Acquired from Pfizer in 2006, the 13,000-sq.-ft Morpeth facility also houses API production, general solid formulation production, and a range of clinical trial supply and research facilities.
 
“The production of hormonal products is a highly specialized, niche area,” said Piramal Enterprises’ executive director and chief operating officer, Vijay Shah. “The Morpeth facility is our Centre of Excellence for these products and this expansion will greatly enhance our offer and potential for growth in this space. The hormonal sector currently represents an $11 billion market globally and is growing at a pace of 4% to 5% annually. With major competition limited to a small number of CMOs in Europe, Piramal sees major opportunities for growth in this area given our vast experience in this field, which spans more than 40 years.”
 
Piramal | Healthcare’s recently announced plans to invest $2.5 million at its Grangemouth, UK, site to upgrade one of its antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) manufacturing suites, from clinical phase to commercial grade, also in response to customer demand. That upgrade will give Piramal two commercial-grade ADC suites at the Grangemouth facility, while retaining clinical phase manufacturing capacity in other suites on site.