Friendly Chemical (FCC), a UK producer of eco-friendly cleaning and personal care products, has moved to a new 930 m2 production facility in Skipton, North Yorkshire. This, the company said, is the result of rapidly rising demand from major retailers, including Booths, Holland & Barratt and The Vegan Kind.
Indian-based CDMO Piramal Pharma Solutions (PPS) is to invest about £55 million to expand two sites in the UK. It will expand its antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) capabilities at Grangemouth in Scotland and new API infrastructure at Morpeth in north-east England.
Italian CDMO Olon has completed a large-scale high containment production line (OEL < 1 mg/m3) at its Rodano site at a cost of about €10 million. This is part of a planned €27 million it will roll out over 2022-3 that is fully allocated to the expansion of further internal expertise and capacity of high containment production. The new line, which is already operative, enables Olon to produce HPAPIs in batches of 30-250 kg.
Connecticut-based CDMO TriRx Pharmaceutical Services has finalized and closed on an agreement to buy Elanco Animal Health’s site in Speke, near Liverpool, UK. The two companies had agreed a two-facility sale and long-term supply agreement in 2021, covering this site and another in Shawnee, Kansas, which it took over last August.
Oaktree Capital Management is to invest $150 million in Czech firm Draslovka, “providing preferred equity capital to support the company’s growth strategy”. This follows multiple recent acquisitions by Draslovksa, a family-owned specialist in CN-based chemicals, including next generation fumigants and biocides.
Novasep has signed a letter of intent to supply the API for Pfizer’s Paxlovid, an oral protease inhibitor against COVID-19 that has shown a positive impact in clinical trials on hospitalisation among at-risk patients Technical transfer, on-site development and equipment installation activities have begun already at the Mourenx facility in France, which is expected to be incorporated into the supply chain by Q3.
Kemira has started full-scale production of its newly developed polyacrylamide polymer based on biobased feedstock. The first commercial volumes are shipped to one of the wastewater treatment plants of the Helsinki Region Environmental Services for trials.
The polymer is water-soluble and offers the same technical specifications as its conventional equivalent, the company stated. As well as water treatment and other water-intensive sectors, it can be used in the energy industry, and potentially also in particularly demanding papermaking applications.
