Sterling Pharma pilot plant operational after $7.6m investment
Sterling Pharma Solutions' pilot plant facility is now operational after a ₤6m ($7.6m) investment into the UK site last year. The current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) facility will increase the pilot plant’s capacity by 33%.
The nearly $8m investment was made in May 2018. At the time, it was believed that the expanded sites would be operational by mid-2018. The investment also saw the addition of polymorph screening, salt selection, particle engineering and crystallization scale-up capabilities to its drug development services.
The expansion of the UK-based contract development and manufacturing organization’s (CDMO) site will provide scale-up capabilities and flexibility for clinical supply and commercial batch production, as the investment saw the addition of three reactor trains at scales of 225L, 500L, and 1,360L.
The additional reactors will be used to meet the demand for smaller active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) batch sizes.
Kevin Cook, CEO of Sterling Pharma said in a statement, “There are a number of increasingly complex products entering the drug pipeline, many of which are intended for smaller patient populations, so the ability to cater for smaller volumes will be essential as we move forward.”
Sterling Pharma has been growing in recent years. Last year it expanded its workforce by hiring 57 employees to support the growing demand for API development manufacturing services at its Dudley, UK site.
