Encap Drug Delivery's new £3m facility expansion will be fully operational by January 2010. The expansion, housed within the company's development and manufacturing facility in Livingston, Scotland, will provide state-of-the-art containment for the production of highly potent pharmaceutical ingredients.
The company says the expansion is a result of 30% growth in the use of liquid and semi solid filled capsules, particularly for oral anti-cancer treatments.
The expanded production facility, rated EU Grade C and US Class 100,000 and validated to an occupational exposure limit of >0.02µg/m3, will provide a process containment solution tailored to liquid and semi-solid filled capsule manufacturing, from early compound development through to commercial scale production.
"We will be able to produce very small quantities right up to millions of capsules per batch," said Stephen Brown, Encap's chief operating officer.
Encap was set up in 1989 and is a global provider of oral drug delivery and pharmaceutical development services. The company's services include fully integrated analytical and formulation development, clinical trial manufacturing and high volume commercial production.