Merck ramps up custom synthesis capacity

Germany's Merck KGaA has almost completed the construction of a €200 million plant that will provide a significant increase in the company's organic synthesis business, and allows the company to become "a major player in the industry in the next 10 years," according to the company.

Burghard Freiberg, general manager, life science compounds at Merck's bulk pharmaceutical compounds business, told in-pharmatechnologist.com at the ongoing CPHI meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, that the company's annual revenues of around 60 million euros have doubled over the last three years, and should top 100 million in the next three to five. At present this places the firm outside the top 10 custom synthesis companies, he noted.

The new facility does not represent a move into new technologies for Merck, rather an investment towards improving the efficiency of its processes in anticipation of tightening regulatory oversight by the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory bodies. It will extend the company's existing capabilities in low-temperature/high pressure reactions and focus on ethical products, note Freiberg. More price-sensitive products such as advanced intermediates will continue to be made at Merck's two plants in India.

On the issue of capacity, Freiberg noted that this is a major issue in the custom synthesis marketplace. At present, the company is running at around 70-75 per cent capacity. This level could be better, he concluded. However, contracts are already in place to tackle the additional capacity that will come on-line with the completion of new Darmstadt plant.

"We have the expertise, capacity and locations to meet the needs of cutting edge research-based life science companies,"​ according to Freiberg. The general prognosis for the custom synthesis is uncertain, due to the low rate of new drugs coming to market and the resulting tendency of big pharma companies to use their in-house resources rather than outsourcing. However, despite this impediment, the US pharma market is still growing by 5-7 per cent a year, so the overall outlook is not bad, he suggested.

Chromatography deal​

Meanwhile, Merck also announced at the CPHI that it had signed an agreement with Bayer Technology Services, recently spun out of the Bayer group as a separate legal entity, to co-operate in the field of process chromatography.

The collaboration is geared up to the development of customer-specific chromatographic separation processes used in pharmaceutical production. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will use its know-how in Chromatic sorbets to develop purification processes while Bayer will be responsible for engineering and manufacturing industrial-scale separation systems and plants based on the technologies.