Hovione opens new API plant in Cork
This article was originally published in Scrip
Hovione held an opening ceremony at its new active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing plant in Cork, Ireland, on April 22nd. The acquisition of the site, which used to manufacture Lipitor (atorvastatin), followed a handover from Pfizer on April 6th.
Hovione says it needed the additional capacity to ensure it could continue to guarantee assurance of supply to its customers. The company, which also offers integrated API, particle design and formulation development as well as manufacturing, will continue to produce a small amount of products for Pfizer, but it will be using the plant predominantly to meet its own production needs.
Guy Villax, the company's chief executive, says the Cork site: "Allows the pharma innovator company to have the best of both worlds – access to excellent facilities with best service and high levels of compliance without the fixed costs and with the capacity available on demand – and all this at the right address."
In the past two years the company has also acquired a plant in Taizhou, China, which is dedicated to manufacturing generics at high volume and low cost. During this time Hovione has doubled its manufacturing capacity to more than 1,000m3 and now employs more than 900 staff. Over the past three years Hovione sales have grown at an average of 14% per annum, it adds.