Johnson Matthey's refurbished Annan API plant passes MHRA GMP inspection
The UK active pharmaceutical and ingredient (API) and catalysts firm announced the approval today, explaining it followed the completion of renovation and refurbishment work.
The Annan facility, which was built by GSK in 2010, produces controlled substance APIs and provides drug firms with custom manufacturing services.
Johnson Matthey bought it from Bakhu Pharma in 2014. Shortly afterwards, the firm began a multi-million pound” refurbishment of the site, citing customer demand as the driver for the investment.
The firm also plans to hire 35 additional staff at the facility.
Spokesman Nick Johnson told us "We see sustained demand for our existing portfolio of products and the Annan site has brought significant additional large scale capacity to service our broad customer base.
"The manufacture of opioids and controlled substances will be a core activity, together with supporting our growing contract manufacture services business" he added.
API sales
In July, Johnson Matthey revealed it had seen API sales decline in the first quarter of its fiscal year – the three months to June 30. At the time it attributed the fall to the timing of orders.
The firm’s API manufacturing business supplies ingredients for pain medications, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) treatments and bulk actives used in addiction therapy and Alzheimer’s disease.
The ingredients are produced at the Annan plant, a site in Edinburgh and at facilities in the US.
Last October, Johnson Matthey acquired Sigma-Aldrich’s Pharmorphix unit, which provides polymorph studies, salt selection, co-crystallization, chiral separations and process scale-up for API development.
At the time it said the deal would add a 'significant' customer base and expand its European API business.
