MOSCOW (MRC) -- Lonza says it is making a “significant” investment to expand particle-engineering and drug-product capabilities at its Bend, Oregon, site with a total of 11 new suites, to meet increased market demand, reported Chemweek.
The first suite will be online this month, expanding early-phase spray-drying, tableting, and encapsulation capability, the company says. Suites for the development and clinical manufacture of drug-product intermediates and drug products utilizing spray-drying, hot-melt extrusion, and melt-spray-congeal processing will be completed by May 2022, it says. Further details have not been disclosed.
New current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) suites will be added to support early-phase cGMP manufacture incorporating additional storage, gowning, and a customer in-plant viewing corridor, as part of the investment, Lonza says. Non-cGMP capability for formulation and process development will also be expanded with one new suite, the company says.
The investment increases capacity and flexibility across particle engineering and oral-drug products, including immediate-release tablets, multi-particulates, and dry powder encapsulation for oral solid and inhaled applications, the company says.
“We continue to see increased demand for development, and clinical and commercial manufacture of particle-engineered intermediates and finished drug products. Dedicated fit-for-purpose suites, infrastructure, and systems are critical for supporting the needs of our customers’ early-phase programs,” says Paul Granberry, managing director at Lonza's Bend site.
As MRC informed earlier, Lonza (Basel, Switzerland) says it has developed a new structure for its pharma, biotech, and nutrition (LBPN) segment to increase “divisional end-to-end performance accountability” and to strengthen governance and process excellence from global functions, as the company proceeds with the previously announced divestment of its specialty ingredients (LSI) segment.
We remind that in 2012, Lonza set up a task force to look at new supply routes and vendors to feed its cracker in Visp, Switzerland, following the shutdown of Petroplus’ refinery at Cressier in January, 2012. Lonza’s cracker has an ethylene capacity of 25,000 tonnes/year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC"s ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,594,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2020, up by 1% year on year. Only high denstiy polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 880,130 tonnes in the nine months of 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports plus imports, exluding producers" inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
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