The site in Birmingham, Alabama manufactures the Evonik’s Resomer range of biodegradable polymers used to encapsulate and control the release of both small molecule APIs and larger peptides and proteins, as well as to coat implantable medical devices.
And now due to increasing “global demand,” the German chemical company has announced it will expand the site by constructing an new facility adjacent to its existing one with new production clean rooms and a laboratory for polymer contract research projects.
“The global demand will continue to grow due to the fact that pharmaceutical drug delivery will require improved sophisticated delivery and medical devices,” Evonik spokesperson Hannah Rausche told in-Pharmatechnologist.com.
“An increased demand for resorbable polymers [is further] caused by a demand for reduction in secondary surgeries and an aging society that is more active.”
The new facility is expected to open in 2018 and forms part of a larger plan to ramp up polymer capacity and capabilities worldwide.
An applied technology laboratory for medical devices at the company’s site in Darmstadt, Germany is set to open within the next few weeks, becoming Evonik’s second such facility following the completion of a lab in Shanghai, China last year.
Rausche did not reveal when asked how much the firm is investing in Birmingham, or across its entire network, nor did she say how much polymer capacity the company currently has.