Pharmaceutical Business review

Pfizer to construct sterile injectable pharmaceutical production plant in Michigan, US

Image: Pfizer world headquarters in Manhattan, New York. Photo: courtesy of Coolcaesar.

The company will build the new multi-storey and 400,000ft² production facility in Portage, situated in Kalamazoo County.

Named as modular aseptic processing (MAP), the new production facility will also help to improve the area economy by creating around 450 new jobs over the next several years.

Pfizer global supply president and executive vice president Kirsten Lund-Jurgensen said: “This investment will strengthen Pfizer’s leadership in sterile manufacturing technology and help meet growing patient demand.”

The investment will help the company to strengthen its capacity to produce and supply injectable medicines for patients across the globe.

Pfizer already employs more than 2,200 people at one of its largest plants in the region.

The new facility will feature technically advanced aseptic manufacturing equipment and systems, as well as multiple self-contained modular manufacturing lines.

Pfizer is planning to conduct groundbreaking ceremony in spring 2019, and intends to complete construction on the new facility in 2021.

The production will start in 2024, after the facility is validated by regulatory agencies.

With a capacity to produce more than 150 products, the firm’s Portage site started operations in 1948 and is a primary global supplier of sterile injectable, liquids and semi-solid medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The facility produces Solu-Medrol, which is mostly used injectable anti-inflammatory medicine.

Pfizer chairman and CEO Ian Read said: “This investment is part of our overall plan announced in January to invest approximately $5 billion in U.S.-based capital projects as a result of the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. During the next six years, we expect to invest approximately $1.1 billion in Kalamazoo County – which is in addition to the $1 billion we have invested in the site over the past decade.”