ATMI LifeSciences and Austar complete Beijing facility
Joint venture builds ultra-clean packaging manufacturing for Asian market
ATMI, a supplier to the life sciences, has opened a manufacturing facility in China as part of its joint venture with Austar, a Hong Kong-based service provider to the Chinese pharmaceutical industry.
The joint venture, ATMI Austar LifeSciences, was set up to produce ultra-clean sterile materials packaging for active pharmaceutical ingredients and sterile pharmaceutical components to meet growing demand across the biopharmaceutical industry in the Asia-Pacific region. The new manufacturing facility in Beijing represents a significant step towards that goal.
Under the joint venture, ATMI Austar LifeSciences will produce ATMI LifeSciences’ Cleansteam products on local blow-film extrusion and packaging converting lines.
The Beijing facility also offers potential to expand manufacturing of ATMI’s Integrity line of bioprocess vessels (BPVs), which the company says could be rolled out as the Asian biotech market continues to grow.
‘This joint venture not only provides ATMI LifeSciences with access to the API and biopharmaceutical markets in Asia, but also access to Austar’s existing ISO Class V GMP-certified, cleanroom-based infrastructure that we can begin to leverage immediately,’ said Mario Philips, general manager and senior vice-president of ATMI LifeSciences.
The new facility provides blow extrusion of films and ultra clean packaging converting and assembly lines, for use in ultra-clean sterile packaging applications for steam or gamma irradiation applications.
In addition to film extrusion and packaging converting lines, the facility includes warehousing and significant cleanroom extension opportunities.
The plant will also serve as a back-up facility for ATMI LifeSciences’ Hoegaarden, Belgium plant.
‘The pharmaceutical market in Asia is expanding rapidly as more multinational firms look to extend their manufacturing capabilities into this vital region,’ added Mars Ho, chief executive of Austar. ‘Local supply and support is an important competitive differentiator.’
This addition to ATMI’s manufacturing base comes just three months after the completion of a two-year, multi-million-dollar expansion project for its Bloomington, Minnesota manufacturing facility. With that expansion, ATMI established its North American hub for the production, marketing and development of its Integrity single-use technologies for biopharmaceutical and other life science applications.
