Pfizer planning yet another plant expansion

Print 01 August 2016
Eric Palmer / Fierce Pharma

In yet another expansion of its manufacturing operations, Pfizer ($PFE) plans to lay out nearly $150 million to build a sterile manufacturing facility and warehouse at its site near Kalamazoo, MI. It is the third manufacturing project the drug giant has unveiled in the last couple of months.

The New York-based drugmaker intends to invest about $105.6 million on a sterile manufacturing operation and another $40.8 million on a warehouse, Michigan Live reports. The projects, for which Pfizer is seeking tax breaks, are expected to add only about 15 jobs but are part of about $800 million in investments the company has told the city could come over the next decade. It indicated it has invested about that much at the site in the last 10 years.

Pfizer site leader Robert Betzig told WKZO radio that the new technology investments will help the Pfizer site stay competitive with plants in low-cost countries like India and China.

The 2,000-acre site in Kalamazoo County produces sterile injectables, nonsterile medications, biologicals, and other products, as well as 150 active pharmaceutical ingredients, steroids, antibiotics, and other Pfizer drugs, the company’s website indicates. It has about 2,100 employees at the site.

Pfizer is also seeking approval by authorities in Dublin, Ireland, to invest between €300 million and €400 million ($440.5 million) to build a 5-story, 34,500-square-meter (371,354-square-foot) biologics manufacturing unit at its Grange Castle manufacturing site. That  project is slated to result in 350 jobs and provide additional capacity for Pfizer arthritis drug Enbrel.

In June, Pfizer said it would spend $200 million to build a 175,000-square-foot facility at its campus in Andover, MA, also to produce complex biologics and vaccines.

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