Allergan has broken ground on a US$200m expansion of its facility in Waco, Texas. The expansion will add 322,000ft2 of manufacturing space to the current facility, nearly doubling its current footprint.
Once completed, the expansion is expected to add approximately 100 full-time jobs, with the potential for the expanded operations adding as many as 250 full-time jobs as the facility reaches full utilisation. New positions that will be added include chemists, microbiologists, process engineers and production and maintenance technicians.
Additionally, the facility expansion will upgrade the company's manufacturing capabilities and capacity. It will add a new raw material dispensary, an automated bulk formulation suite and 10 new state-of-the-art production lines as well as warehousing space. Upon completion, the Waco facility will be capable of producing more than 40 different product formulations and will increase its production capacity by more than 50%.
The construction, commissioning and validation of the facility expansion and production processes are expected to be completed by 2020.
'Today's groundbreaking marks an important milestone for Allergan, strengthening our commitment to our people, operations and the partnership we have built with Waco and the Central Texas communities for 27 years,' said Brent Saunders, President and CEO of Allergan. 'This investment will add highly-skilled jobs to the Waco and Central Texas economies, elevate our manufacturing capabilities and increase our ability to provide more complex medicines to more physicians and their patients around the globe.'