German-based LANXESS subsidiary Saltigo has made a significant step towards strengthening its market presence in the pharmaceutical sector with the inauguration of its Euro 10m CGMP manufacturing plant in Leverkusen.
The state-of-the art plant, which underwent a revamp from a dedicated quinolone site to a multi-purpose facility, features four production lines or modules that are able to produce over 200 metric tons of active pharmaceutical ingredients APIs annually.
Pharmaceutical production makes up 60% of the world's total market volume or about €8bn, with the remainder consisting of agrochemicals and specialty chemicals. Saltigo is keen to grow its pharma sector share and will be using its new plant and its employee expertise to achieve this.
"We want to systematically develop the pharmaceutical sector, because it is a cornerstone of our business,' said Saltigo managing director Wolfgang Schmitz.
The company's service portfolio takes in everything from synthesis, process development and piloting to scale-up and production. Customer can also make use of analytics and can gain support with registration. To meet the increasing demands of customers, the new facility can achieve hydrogenation on a 5m3 scale in line with CGMP.
"Our chief objective in doing this was to meet our customers" requirements and with flexibility' said Schmitz. "We want to achieve lasting growth in the field of custom synthesis in the pharmaceutical sector. This has been our principle motivation in rapidly installing additional CGMP capacities here at our integrated site in Leverkusen."
With a total tank volume of 42m3, the plant has 44m3 of stirred volume in reaction vessels of between 2.5m3 and 8m3 and a storage tank volume of 100m3. The facility can produce both orally and intravenously administers APIs as well as corrosive substances such as hydrochlorides.
Integration with other facilities within Saltigo's CHEMPARK also offers benefits to the company's overall production and includes access to the neighbouring Central Organics Pilot Plant (ZeTO). A total of €0.5m has been spent in this area to ensure that syntheses can be performed on a production scale across the entire temperature range from +120 °C to -120°C. It also aims to satisfy the growing demand for complex syntheses at very low temperatures.
And the company's recent acquisition of a new site in Redmond, Washington in the US aims to support this recent development.
"The US market is an important centre for pharmaceutical innovation and we are confident we can tap new business opportunities from Redmond via LANXESS Corporation," said Anne Gidner, head of marketing & sales for Saltigo's pharma business line.