The contract development and manufacturing organization’s (CDMO) investment will see reactor trains at scales of 225L, 500L and 1,360L added to its Dudley, UK-based site, which will increase capacity by 33%.
The investment will boost the CDMO’s small to mid-scale batch production capabilities, sales and marketing director Andrew Henderson told us at CPhI North America last week.
“We will are adding three reactor trains at the site,” he told us, bringing the total number of trains to eight.
According to the firm, the investment responds to increased demand for active pharmaceutical batch sizes in the 10-100kg range.
“More and more of our customers are interested in outsourcing the entire process and by adding more small-scale equipment to our facility we’ll be able to increase our capacity and cater for additional projects from proof of concept through to commercial manufacture,” said CEO Kevin Cook in a statement.
The investment marks the firm’s second £6m ($8m) investment in two years.
In October 2017, we reported that Sterling was adding four milling areas to its Dudley, UK-based site to increase its solid form capabilities.
The investment also saw the CDMO add polymorph screening, salt selection, particle engineering and crystallisation scale-up capabilities to its drug development services, as well as occupational exposure band (OEB) 4 classified molecule capabilities and International Standards Organisation (ISO) 9 cleanrooms.
The facilities are expected to be operational by mid-2018.