Rohner's new active ingredients plant is running

Rohner AG has constructed a new state-of-the-art pharmaceutical facility at its existing site at Pratteln, near Basel. When finished, the total investment will be worth US$80m (Euro 80m). The aim of the project is to provide pharmaceutical customer support for companies that are outsourcing parts of their manufacturing process.

The new plant is a joint project between Dynamic Synthesis, the new custom synthesis division of the Dynamit Nobel Group, Germany, and Rohner AG, of Switzerland. By offering custom synthesis of different compounds, Dynamic Synthesis aims to help its clients maximise their capital expenditure and reduce the time to market for new drugs.

The main purpose of the plant is the manufacture of advanced intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for companies dedicated to the development of new drugs. The basic engineering was initiated in March 1999. The first phase involved the erection of four production lines entailing capital expenditure of roughly $40m. A further expansion of up to 12 lines, worth another $40m, will follow in a second and third phase.

The plant will specialise in the following core areas:

Reduction of nitro groups (hydrogen transfer catalysis)

Enantioselective reduction of ketones (chiral alcohols through

bioconversion)

Catalytic hydrogenation (Pressure 60 bar, Inconel 686)

Access to 30,000 reactions through a specialised research company

Cyanation (CuCN and homogeneous catalysis)

Diazotisation and subsequent reactions

Grignards

Side-chain bromination

The plant benefits from the existing infrastructure at the Rohner's Pratteln site. Once the work has been completed, the Basel plant will have spare capacity available for product-specific line configurations, diverse drum sizes and sophisticated technologies. It will operate in a temperature range of -100-200°C and a pressure range of 0.01-6 bar. Reactors will be either glass-lined or made of stainless steel or hastelloy. To keep manufacturing costs low and maximise plant flexibility, the site will shift to support 24-hour, 7-day a week operation; the degree of segregation within the production areas will meet the individual cGMP requirements of the products; there will be decentralised automation and batch data recording for key reaction steps, and the basic equipment will be multipurpose.