Indian contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) Hikal has signed a long-term agreement to supply active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to Pfizer.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, however, Jai Hiremath, vice chairman & managing director of Hikal said that it will have a "substantial impact" on its pharmaceutical business in the coming years.
The firm's API and pharmaceutical intermediates manufacturing facilities are situated in Jigani (Bangalore) and Panoli (Gujarat) respectively.
This week, Urigen Pharmaceuticals has inked a deal with CMO Hyaluron Contract Manufacturing, who will assist in the development of URG101, a new fixed dose combination of already-approved drugs targeting painful bladder syndrome (PBS) that Urigen is moving through the clinic.
Hyaluron specialises in aseptic manufacturing of filled liquid parenterals and medical devices.
"We are very pleased to have been selected by Urigen to undertake the development of their kit targeting PBS," said company president Shawn Kinney.
Meanwhile, DSM's custom manufacturing unit, DSM Pharma Chemicals, announced recently that it has expanded its relationship with IEP, entering into a long-term enzyme supply agreement with the German company to enable "fast and secure scale-up" of chiral alcohol manufacturing based on IEP enzymes.
Under the deal, DSM now has access to IEP alcohol dehydrogenases, which are screened at IEP, as well as supply of IEP enzymes at commercial scale.
DSM said it can either source the enzyme from IEP or produce the enzymes in its own enzyme manufacturing facilities located in Delft, The Netherlands; Capua, Italy; or Seclin, France.
DSM's Pharma Chemicals group, group, which specialises in biocatalysis and homocatalysis, first forged a relationship with IEP in 2006, starting with a focus on alcohol dehydrogenase screens and process development.
Ronald Gebhard, director of research and development, told In-PharmaTechnologist.com in an earlier interview that collaborations such as the one with IEP are giving the firm "new access to novel enzymes, so with their enzymes combined with our in-house enzymes we can offer the widest genetic diversity to our customers."
According to Gebhard, the division is embarking on more and more projects where its access to such a range of enzymes is "making the difference."
"Forty per cent of new projects now involve a catalyst step that uses our catalysis technology, compare to only ten per cent three years ago," he said.