The new two storey 2,900m2 facility will bolster packaging capacity at Eisai’s EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa, Russia and Oceania) headquarters in Hatfield, UK by 40 percent and is set to create 40 new jobs over the next five to seven years.
According to President and CEO of Eisai EMEA, Gary Hendler, the purpose of the investment is to enhance packaging capability as Eisai’s product range grows.
“As we supply new and existing products to an increasing number of countries with different languages, our packaging capability needs to cope with an extremely high mix of low-volume packaging, often difficult to handle compounds such as lenvatinib,” he said.
Eisia’s follicular thyroid cancer treatment, lenvatinib, was granted orphan designation by the European Commission in April this year, and the new facility will primarily cater to blister packaging of the drug.
Once construction is completed in mid-2014, the facility will up package and supply capacity of the anti-epilepsy drug Fycompa, as well as several new products.