The 1,200 square foot facility in Newcastle, UK will provide Wasdell the space to offer in-house microbiological and analytical services to its customers. According to the company, it will also support its manufacturing, packaging, and quality control (QC) teams.
“We have a number of customers that have really driven the investment specifically by awarding new business to Wasdell Manufacturing for the development and the manufacturing of their products,” Daniel Tedham, managing director at Wasdell told us.
“A couple of these customer project meant we have been having to utilize contract laboratories and this investment will allow us to provide the service internally and allow our customers to continue to benefit from the high level of service we currently offer through our existing divisions,” he explained.
The lab will offer analytical capabilities for chemical, physical, and microbiological analysis including HPLC, FTIR, and wet chemistry with QC testing of raw materials, drug substances, and drug products.
The investment is the first phase of the company’s expansion strategy, the next phase of which will see a new laboratory facility open in Ireland. Tedham said the company will replicate the lab offerings at the Ireland-based facility to “have the facility in Europe to cater for all situations after Brexit.”
The company last year announced plans to build the Irish packaging and testing site to secure an EU base post-Brexit. The 70,000 square-foot Dundalk facility will offer qualified person (QP) release, analytical testing, and distribution services.
Additionally, Wasdell is “working on a tender” that will require an additional £200k ($267k) investment into new equipment to test a new portfolio of products, mainly solid dose, Tedham said. “This is very promising and is likely to commence Q4 2018,” he added.