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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. |
