Fresenius Kabi investing $100m and adding 445 jobs in North Carolina
In January 2016, Fresenius Kabi acquired the injectables business of Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), along with its facility in Wilson, North Carolina.
Wilson specialises in the production of the Simplist line of generic medicines in ready-to-administer prefilled glass syringes, and is set to receive $100m (€85m) of investment to increase capacity at its current manufacturing facility and build another plant at the site.
“Such ready-to-administer, prefilled syringes are a differentiated product category that continues to grow due to increased focus by health care providers on efficiency, productivity and medication safety,” spokesperson Matt Kuhn told in-Pharmatechnologist.
“Today's news follows what we said when Fresenius Kabi acquired this business in 2016 - that we would continue to invest in this business to expand the Simplist ready-to-administer product offerings to meet customer needs.”
Since acquiring the business, Fresenius Kabi has introduced two new products and a line extension, the latter being a new dose for an existing product that filled a customer need, we were told. There are currently nine Simplest product lines, but the firm is looking to grow this further.
The investment will also bring more than 400 jobs to Wilson, as stipulated by North Carolina’s Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG), a tax incentive programme offered by the state’s Economic Investment Committee, which helped facilitate the expansion.
Under the terms of the grant, the company has agreed to create 445 jobs over five years but will see a potential reimbursement of up to $7.2m over 12 years
The investment was alluded to in Fresenius’s quarterly financial call earlier this month with CEO Stephan Sturm telling investors he was looking to further expand operations to take advantage of the long-term growth prospects of the generic injectables market in the US.
In September, the firm broke ground on a planned $250m expansion of its site in Melrose Park, Illinois site, located about 20km west of Chicago.
