In April, the US Food and Drug Administartion (FDA) approved Bevespi Aerosphere, a fixed-dose dual bronchodilator combining glycopyrrolate and formoterol fumarate - a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) and long-acting beta-2 agonist (LABA) – for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
And this week, UK-based medical device manufacturer Bespak has announced it has entered a new commercial supply agreement with the firm to provide components for use with Bevespi Aerosphere’ pMDI.
“Bespak will supply AstraZeneca with valves and actuators,” Bespak’s MD Keyvan Djamarani told this publication. “This is not an exclusive deal. Our pMDI technology is widely used across the industry and is available for other clients.”
While he added Bespak has been working with AstraZeneca for a number of years, volume and financial details were not divulged for reasons of client confidentiality.
Bespak has enough capacity to produce the demanded volumes from its facility in King’s Lynn, UK, which has seen a number of investments over the past few years.
“Bespak is a major global supplier of valves and actuators and as such have significant and robust installed capacity that is able to immediately service the needs of individual customers,” Djamarani said.
“As such we consider the overall investment requirements to meet the total demand of our collective customer base. We continue to invest in this core portfolio to ensure ongoing robust capability.”
Bespak has also worked with fellow UK-based Big Pharma GlaxoSmithKline, making a series of drug delivery devices and components since 1968 including over 550 million Diskus devices for use with the firm’s asthma and COPD pipeline.