Pharmaceutical Business review

NextPharma Upgrades SVA Facility In Belgium

The newly established SVA for both solution and lyophilized vials, which is anticipated to be begin operations by the end of 2010, will add to the current sterile capabilities at the Braine-l’Alleud unit covering ampoules, eye drops and cytostatics in vials (both solution and lyophilized forms).

The facility at Braine l’Alleud, Belgium has good expertise in cytotoxics, lyophilization and solutions, gained from formulation development, manufacturing, packaging and control of cytotoxic products. The company said that it has started a program for the implementation of FDA status, including expansion and upgradation of its cytotoxics production capacity and capabilities, and is also earnest on the development of new delivery dosage forms.

The new additional capability will provide customers with an integrated solution for their non cytotoxic products from development in the Braine l’Alleud Sterile Product Development Center (SPDC) or at the company’s San Diego, US based development center to commercial production scale up at the company’s Braine-l’Alleud manufacturing facilities.

Dr Hermann Osterwald, managing director of contract manufacturing services at NextPharma Technologies, said: “The completion of the SVA became a priority for our Braine facility following the successful completion of the SPDC and considerable interest from our customers.

“NextPharma’s strategy for our Braine-l’Alleud facility has been to develop it as a centre of excellence for sterile development and manufacturing, (both cytostatic and non-cytostatic, including biologics). The recent completion of the SPDC, our rapidly growing development center in San Diego and now the SVA represent a key element of this strategy.”