The contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) has stated it is taking an aggressive approach, which has seen the company expand beyond its traditional focus on commercial scale manufacturing and packaging.
Norwich believes that biotechs are increasingly seeking full service outsourcing offerings and the CMO has expanded its offering to meet this demand.
Referring to its pilot scale production Chris Calhoun, president of Norwich, said: "Small scale development studies require a broad range of equipment. We invested in new, state-of-the-art particle sizing equipment, tablet compression equipment, high shear granulation, fluid bed and mixers with capacities in line with the requirements of formulation activities.
"Our engineers have been diligently comparing the specifications of equipment making certain that what we were putting in place could be scalable and adaptable to meet the varied requirements of several pilot programs at one time."
The company has also added potent compound development capabilities, investing $3m (€2.2m) in the infrastructure, controls and equipment that is needed.
This includes the installation of a HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system capable of 20 room air changes per hour and use of HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filtration to eliminate the risk of cross contamination
Having added this capacity the CMO will be able to produce highly potent clinical trial material, including fast dissolve and controlled release tablets.
Period of expansion
The additions to Norwich’s capacity are part of its attempts to diversify, which began with the expansion of its developmental services.
By making these investments Norwich hopes to equip itself to deal with “any technical service request”. This spans from single, specialised services, such as improving quality control processes, up to complete end-to-end assistance.