NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE PHARMACEUTICAL FINE CHEMICAL AND CUSTOM MANUFACTURING SECTOR

Wednesday 23 June 2010

ICICI seeks buyer for RFCL

ICICI Ventures is looking to sell RFCL, which includes fine chemicals and in vitro diagnostics businesses. ICICI is believed to be looking to raise $87m.
Business Standard

Borregaard closes Italian plant

Borregaard Synthesis is closing its production plant in Ravenna, Italy, as a result of challenging market conditions which it does not see changing in the near future. 40 employees will be affected.
Borregaard

Tuesday 22 June 2010

Ricerca gains DEA licence; ISO 9001 certification

Ricerca Biosciences has gained a US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) licence for its Concord, OH, facility which allows the company to produce controlled bulk APIs for phase I to II trials. Additionally, Ricerca's Lyon facility has obtained the ISO 9001:2008 certification. The company's Taipei facility received the ISO 9001:2008 certification in October 2009.
Outsourcing Pharma
Ricerca

AMRI to buy back $10m shares

Business Week

Monday 21 June 2010

UKTI seeks companies for UK pavilion at CPhI

UK Trade & Investment is seeking UK-based companies offering UK-origin products and services within the fine and speciality chemical industry, as well as relevant service providers to the pharmaceutical industry for the UK pavilion at CPhI in October.
For more information contact UKTI

Siegfried has broken ground on its new 700m2, $1.5m warehouse in Pennsville, NJ

NJ.com

Kaneka has acquired biologics manufacturer, Eurogentec

Nikkei

Codexis and Merck receive Presidential award

Merck and Codexis have been awarded the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency for their development of a novel biocatalytic method for the synthesis of diabetes drug, sitagliptin. The award recognises new technologies that help prevent pollution by reducing or eliminating hazardous waste in industrial production. Additionally, the companies have published details of the process, which uses a customised enzyme to perform a key step in the synthesis, in the journal Science.
Codexis
Reuters

FDA plans new manufacturing rules

The US FDA is planning to new regulations to tighten up regulations for drugmakers that outsource manufacturing. The FDA said it may require drugmakers to conduct on-site audits of contract manufacturing facilities. Additionally, the agency is considering issuing warning letters to both the contact manufacturer and drugmaker if issues are found.
Wall Street Journal

Thursday 17 June 2010

AMRI has acquired Hyaluron for $27m to add pre-filled syringe contract manufacturing capabilities

Reuters

Evonik has commissioned its precious-metal powder catalysts manufacturing plant in Shanghai

Evonik

Jubilant invests in Gujarat

Jubilant Organosys is building two 10,000-tonne/year units at its special economic zone at Bharuch in Gujarat. One plant will produce niacinamide and the other 3-cyanopyridine.
Business Standard

SAFC invests in Scotland and Missouri facilities

Sigma-Aldrich's SAFC division is expanding its network of global 'Centers of Excellence' designed specifically to support the seamless upstream and downstream production of liquid cell culture reagents at its St. Louis, Missouri site and its Irvine, Scotland facility. The work is expected to finish in Q4 2010.
SAFC

Rumour: Is Lilly looking to add custom manufacturing facilities in India?

DNA India

Synthetech reported a 37% decline in revenues in its Q4 ended 31 March to $4.2m and a decline of 23% to $15.2m for its fiscal 2010

Synthetech

Thursday 10 June 2010

Lonza adds development services

Lonza has launched a new set of immunogenicity, stability and protein engineering services designed to improve the quality, safety, efficacy and manufacturability of antibodies, therapeutic proteins and vaccines. The Applied Protein Services platform complements the company's process development and manufacturing capabilities while advancing its efforts to incorporate Quality by Design (QbD) principles.
Lonza

Xcellerex building biomanufacturing facility

Xcellerex has started construction of its state-of-the-art cGMP biomanufacturing facility in Marlborough, MA. The facility will use Xcellerex's single use bioreactors and downstream unit operations to provide bridge biomanufacturing services for clients that are planning or building their own facilities using Xcellerex technology. The plant, which is due to be completed in September, will also support Xcellerex’s contract manufacturing operations.
Xcellerex

DSM BioSolutions will manufacture Novacta Biosystems' C. difficile antibiotic compound at its Capua, Italy, facility

Manufacturing Chemist

Tuesday 8 June 2010

Cellectis bioresearch will use its meganuclease technology to deactivate the glutamine synthetase in Lonza’s proprietary CHO cell line

Cellectis

Albemare to build kilo-lab in Belgium

Albemarle fine chemistry services division is building a state of the art kilo lab in Louvain la Neuve, Belgium. The facility will contain the highest quality processes and safety features and have capabilities up to and including 50L glass lined vessels.
Albemarle

Ash Stevens to expand capacity

Ash Stevens will invest $20m to expand its API production capabilities in Riverview, MI, over the next five years. CEO Stephen Munk believes this will expand production by 50-80% and allow the company to hire another 50 workers. In the first phase Ash Stevens will add a 1000m3, $3.5m warehouse, which will be completed by October. The second phase of the project, which will start in 2011, will replace a 3400L reactor bay with a 8500L reactor bay with 1900L, 2800L-gallon and 3800L vessels.
Crain's Detroit

Lonza will manufacture and market California Stem Cell's pluripotent stem cell products

Nasdaq

Almac is planning to add 260 jobs at its new headquarters building near Philadelphia

Philadelphia Business Journal

Fine chems sales grow for Johnson Matthey

Sales at Johnson Matthey's Fine Chemicals Division rose 2% to £219m and operating profit rose 13% to £55.8m. The company expects to deliver steady growth in the divison, but said that H1 results this year would be impacted by the absence of the $12m one-off benefit in 2009/10 from the launch of the generic version of Adderall XR.
Johnson Matthey

Angel Biotechnology reported a reduced Q1 loss and expects to make its first profit in H1

The Herald

Ubichem research has received approval to supply radiolabelled APIs

Out-sourcing Pharma

Angel Biotechnology will provide GMP manufacturing to Materia Medica for antibodies, in a £1.3m contract

Angel Bio

Siegfried will supply at least 60% of Jazz Pharmaceuticals sodium oxybate requirements

Siegfried

Sales at Dottikon fell 25% to CHF113.1m in the year to 31 March

Dottikon