The 2,500 square foot unit will house good manufacturing practice (GMP) compliant production lines capable of making drug supplies for Phase I and II clinical trials. The facility will also provide early-phase manufacturing capacity in the 1kg to 10kg range.
The PDS also houses multiple laboratory units capable of carrying out small scale dosage testing, powder-in-bottle manufacture, as well as tablet, capsule, oral dosage and nasal spray development.
A statement issued by PDS' vice president, Colin Minchom, detailed some of the unit’s potential advantages. He singled out the PDS’ “rapid response capabilities” as being a feature that will: “significantly strengthen Patheon’s competitiveness in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology early development area.”
Patheon’s president of North American operations, Terry Novak, added the firm “is committed to investing in its development services business and with this new capacity in Whitby; we can now offer rapid early phase development to our North American customers.”
Further evidence of Patheon’s efforts to develop its offering emerged earlier this month when the firm opened a new intermediate scale processing suite (ISPS) at its plant in Cincinnati, US.
In contrast with the PDS, the ISPS will focus on helping drugmakers to scale-up processes according to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quality by design (QbD) principles.