Hovione opens its new API plant in Cork

Hovione has officially opened its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing site in Cork, Ireland.

Hovione contracted with Pfizer last December to take over the site that had been manufacturing Lipitor since 1997. The handover of the plant took place on 6 April with the transaction closing two days later. Hovione will continue a small amount of manufacturing for Pfizer but will mostly address its own needs and produce APIs for a range of pharmaceutical companies.

Lorcan MacGarry, Hovione Cork's general manager, said: "This site has been the API engine behind Lipitor, the most successful medicine ever. It is with this heritage that it joins the Hovione group. We will be transferring to the Cork site a number of compounds over the next 18 months - some were recently approved, others are growing fast and customers are looking for second sources - and finally Hovione's rich pipe-line of Phase III compounds need to have registration batches done at their commercial site of manufacture."

Over the last two years Hovione has acquired two new plants - Cork and Taizhou in China - and doubled manufacturing capacity to more than 1,000m³.