Wacker expands cyclodextrin capacity

Wacker has expanded its cyclodextrin facility in Eddyville, IA. The $21m investment has boosted capacity for alpha and beta cyclodextrins by 50% and doubling capacity for gamma cyclodextrin, with the new facility capable of producing 7500 tonne/year of cyclodextrin.
In-Pharma Technologist

Wacker boosts biologics

Wacker is boosting biologics production capacity at its Jena site. Following the completion of a process development and quality control facility in December 2008 a further extension will double the production area and add a downstream purification site. The new facility is expected to be on-stream by 2010
Wacker

Lonza will use its proprietary microreactor technology to produce both clinical trials and large-scale commercial materials for an un-named big pharma

Reuters

Emerson Process Management will provide engineering and design services and digital automation systems for Lonza's biopharma plant in Singapore

Manufacturing Chemist

Lonza invests in India

Lonza will invest $150m in a two-stage project in Genome valley, Hyderabad, India. The first phase of the development, which is due to be operational in 2011-2013, is for R&D labs for 100 people, a small-scale multi-purpose manufacturing plant for biopharmaceuticals, and a small-scale bio-therapeutic media manufacturing plant. The second phase of the development, which is due to be operational in 2014-2015 includes expanded media manufacturing capacity for bio-therapeutic media, additional R&D lab capacity for biologics for 200 researchers, and expanded large-scale manufacturing plant for biopharmaceuticals.
Fierce Biotech

Hovione invests in R&D unit

Hovione will invest €2m ($3m) in a new R&D unit in Lisbon. The facility, which will be the base for the company's drug R&D efforts, will focus on the design, development and characterisation of nano- and micro-particles for novel delivery applications.
Outsourcing Pharma

The number of peptides in clinical studies has doubled in the last decade

Tufts CSDD

The US Senate has confirmed Margaret Hamburg as FDA Commissioner

Wall Street Journal

Americal Pacific Fine Chemicals saw revenues decline 9% in its Q2 2009

Ampac

Lonza will manufacture a subset of Morphotek's antibody pipeline including lead candidate farletuzumab

Morning Star

Avecia Biotechnology will manufacture Giuliani SpA's oligonucleotide therapeutic for Crohn's disease

MMD Newswire

Lonza expands in Singapore

Lonza is investing CHF30m ($27.03m) in a new cell therapy manufacturing facility in Singapore. Construction will commence next year and production by mid-2011.
Reuters

Minakem acquires API plant

Minakem has acquired AstraZeneca's multi-purpose APIs plant in Dunkirk. In addition Minakem has a greed a long term contract to supply AstraZeneca with Budesonide, Omeprazole and Esomeprazole. The multipurpose plant is dedicated to the production of corticosteroids.
Contract Pharma

Lonza and Teva have received EU approval for their biosimilars jv

Reuters

Eden Biodesign successfully completes second MHRA audit at Liverpool facility

Eden Biodesign

Avecia Biologics Tees Valley manufacturing facility has received a Manufacturer’s Licence from the MHRA

Avecia

Avecia launches antibody fragment toolkit

Avecia Biologics has launched a toolkit of technologies for producing antibody fragment therapeutics. The toolkit combines Avecia's high yield microbial expression system with downstream technologies for purification, refold and PEGylation.
Avecia

Cobra Biomanufacturing will develop and manufacture bulk quantities of KAHR Medical's TSCP proteins for preclinical and future clinical testing

Cobra

Third party with draws from takeover talks with Cobra Biomanufacturing

ShareCast

Obama wants extra $300m for FDA

US President Barack Obama has called on Congress to authorise and addtional $300m in to boost the FDA budget from $2.06bn in 2009 to $2.35bn in 2010. The President said the budget should strengthen inspections and increase the number of generic drugs on the US market.
Wall Street Journal

CombinatoRx files against Aptuit

CombinatoRx has filed a lawsuit against Aptuit. CombinatoRx alleges that "Aptuit caused harm by willfully ignoring warnings and failing to correct or disclose deficient practices that did not comply with European Union Good Manufacturing Practices as identified by UK regulatory authorities during planned inspections of Aptuit’s manufacturing facility in Kansas City, Missouri". The suit relates to the terminated agreement to manufacture Synavive (CRx-102) for a clinical trial.
CombinatoRx

Althea Technologies has opened its new state-of-the-art, commercial-scale cGMP manufacturing facility in San Diego, CA

Althea

Pharma declines for Saltigo

Lanxess' Saltigo business unit saw "robust" performance in Q1. The unit was less affected by declining demand from customer industries than in Lanxess' other business units. However Saltigo did see some decline in its pharmaceutical intermediates business due to product launch delays.
Lanxess

Dow Chemical plans to issue shares worth $1.63bn to fund Rohm & Haas acquisition

Associated Press

Jubilant Organosys in neuroscience drug discovery collaboration with AstraZeneca

Morning Star

Cambrex sales decline

Cambrex reported a sales decline of 2.8% in Q1 2009. The company said that excluding currency impacts sales increased 8.7% primarily due to long standing orders of two APIs, higher volumes of controlled substances and slightly higher custom development revenues. However, the company saw lower sales of generic APIs.
Cambrex

Archimica applies for DEA license to produce lisdexamfetamine

US DOJ