The expected cost of approximately 70 million euro ($79 million) is part of an investment strategy announced by the company in September 2015, with the goal of further developing its manufacturing sites and adding manufacturing capacities.
“2015 was another successful year economically for Vetter as evidenced by a growing customer demand for projects in clinical development, commercial manufacturing, and final packaging,” Vetter Managing Director, Thomas Otto, told us. “Thus, the company was able to increase sales by approximately 10 percent.”
The first part of the investment was at the Schuetzenstrasse multi-functional building for Development Service and state-of-the-art Information Technology, at which construction is already underway.
The new, seven story building will span 8,000 sq. meters (86,000 sq. ft) and will include a cleanroom with supportive media systems, and office space.
According to the company, the cleanroom’s applied technology will be dedicated to bulk syringes filling and will be compatible for filling sensitive drugs, such as biologics and opthalmics. The syringes prepared in the bulk process will be customizable, tailored to substance and primary packaging material components, and offer customizable low silicone levels.
The cleanroom will also feature an improved restricted access barrier system (RABS) concept to combine the advantages of isolator and RABS technology. According to the company, “the core of this innovative approach is a uniquely fast, by today’s standards, 3-hour cycle and fully automated decontamination of the cleanroom using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).”
The new building is scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2018, with operations beginning in early 2019.
“This addition to our Schuetzenstrasse site is an exciting chapter in our company’s history and will again support Vetter’s target to offer its customers the adequate high manufacturing quality for their high value drugs,” said Otto. “Attaining this high level of quality is of particular significance to Vetter as it represents one of our core customer relations value propositions.”