Piramal begins production at API facility in Michigan
The facility is operated out of Michigan, US, by Piramal Pharma Solutions, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and subsidiary of Piramal Pharma.
In total, the company spent $38m (€35.5m) to expand the Riverview site, with the project beginning in May 2021. The new facility covers approximately 25,000-square-feet of space and includes production, warehousing, and supporting utilities.
The move to invest in the site comes only a few years after the company spent $10m adding quality control and analytic laboratories, as well as doubling the office space at the site.
According to the company, the newest investment was just the first stage of expansion, with additional plans to add further reactor bays, as part of ‘Project Prime Phase 2’.
The new facility is dedicated to the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and high potency active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs). In terms of technology added, the company stated that the space features a 10,000L reactor capacity, capable of producing HPAPIs with low occupation exposure levels, and is accompanied by a pressure dryer filter.
Piramal states that the site possesses product isolation capabilities that include extraction, filtration, centrifugation, and distillation. In addition, it has drying and finishing capabilities including sealed Rosenmund filter dryers with glovebox technology, forced air and vacuum drying ovens, and class 10,000 clean suites.
Last year, Piramal also opened an additional API plant in Aurora, Canada. The company invested CAD $30m in the site, which had added more than 10,000-square-feet of space and provided two new reactor suites, with additional filtration and drying capabilities.
Peter DeYoung, CEO, Piramal Global Pharma, said, “Getting Project PRIME Phase 1 online is an important milestone for Piramal Pharma Solutions and the Riverview site team. It brings additional capacity to our North American offering, which we believe satisfies the market's current high demand for APIs. It also addresses the industry trend for onshoring of drug substance production.”
The latter part of the statement refers to efforts within the industry, especially within the US, to relocate certain elements of manufacturing into the market where the products are primarily delivered.
The move is part of an effort to decrease reliance on a select few countries for certain APIs and raw materials, leading 67% of respondents to one survey to observe that their government had made attempts to onshore manufacture.
