Avecia to double early phase capacity
Avecia is investing a further US$8m to double its early phase pharmaceutical development and manufacturing capacity in North America and the UK. This brings its investment in this area to almost $50m since spring 2000.
Mid September saw the opening of a new 10,000ft² r&d suite at Torcan Chemical, Avecia's Canada-based pharmaceutical development business. This forms part of a 20,000ft² package of new and up-graded facilities, which has doubled Torcan's process development and scale-up capacity in synthetic organic chemistry and analytical chemistry.
In October construction began on a new, highly flexible pilot plant at Huddersfield in the UK. The 12,000ft² facility, which will be fully operational by the middle of next year, will be dedicated to rapid production of clinical trial quantities of early phase intermediates.
The plant is designed for rapid changeover be-tween products and will include a three-stream pilot plant with a capacity of 400 – 1,600l, and two kilo labs, each with pairs of 50 – 75l reactors. It will complement Torcan's capability for full service cGMP manufacture of early phase complex intermediates and launched or near-launched APIs.
'The focus of our new assets at Huddersfield – on rapid conversion of customer processes to trial quantity materials – is a response to the need for ever shorter lead times in pharmaceutical development,' said Avecia vice president Nick Hyde. 'Customers will also benefit from our ability to swiftly transfer processes into larger scale pilot and full-scale product manufacturing assets.'