Facility

As the pendulum of vaccinating the world against COVID-19 begins to swing to developing countries, Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) will build an mRNA facility in Africa that could produce as many as 500 million 50-µg vaccine doses annually. Its currently authorized booster has a 100-µg dose of mRNA, but the company aims to use a 50-µg dose…

Electrical actuator and flow-control firm ProMation Engineering has hired Tom Wayer as a national sales manager. The company can provide custom flow-control products to meet customer-specific needs for various industries, including pharmaceutical manufacturers. Brooksville, Florida–based ProMation also serves the chemical processing industry. Wayer has experience selling equipment, systems and entire projects with actuators, valves, pumps,…

Honeywell (NASDAQ:HON) will integrate manufacturing execution system (MES) software offerings from Performix Inc. into its portfolio of offerings for life science companies. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Houston, Texas–based Performix specializes in creating MES software for pharma and biotech companies. The company also has an office in Pune, India. Late last year, Honeywell…

Contract development and manufacturing organization Lonza has announced a series of expansion projects during the pandemic. Most recently, the Basel-based company revealed plans to expand its drug product manufacturing services on its home turf in Switzerland. Included in the expansion will be an installation of a new aseptic fill and finish line in the city…

Steris has launched the next generation of its vaporized hydrogen peroxide (VHP) biodecontamination systems to achieve 6-log bioburden reduction in good-manufacturing-practice pharmaceutical, medical device and research environments. It’s possible to integrate the new VHP 100i and 1000i systems into a facility’s building automation and HVAC systems, running a decontamination cycle at programmed intervals or at…

Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) has been on something of a spending spree during the pandemic. Looking to bolster its nutraceutical business, the company announced it would acquire Plano, Texas–based Bettera Holdings LLC for $1 billion. Bettera specializes in gummy, soft chew and lozenge products within nutritional supplements. Also this year, Catalent has acquired RheinCell Therapeutics, which develops induced…

The volume of audio files that potentially contain valuable data on adverse events (AEs) has exploded, outpacing the pace pharmacovigilance (PV) operations originally anticipated in the COVID era. Healthcare company call centers, which in some instances saw up to 75% of adverse drug reaction (ADR) notifications reported through this channel, are challenged to handle this drastic…

Vacaville, Calif. is home to a burgeoning biotech hub. And there’s more to Vacaville’s biomanufacturing industry than Genentech’s presence there. “Genentech is just one of the biotech companies to open in Vacaville,” said Don Burrus, the city’s director of economic development services. “We’ve had biomanufacturers here for almost 30 years.” Genentech set up shop in…

Takeda Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:TAK) has announced that it is investing $126 million to expand a production facility in Thousand Oaks, one of the largest cities in Ventura County, California. The money will support constructing a new 15,000-ft2 manufacturing facility and renovating an existing 14,000–ft2 plant. The mayor of the city, Claudia Bill-de la Peña, joined Takeda officials…

How remote visual inspection (RVI) can help pharma companies prevent contamination and maintain product-line purity requirements. Many pharmaceutical manufacturing plants are interlaced with webs of stainless steel process pipes and vessels through which products flow. Bacterial or foreign-particle contamination in pipes and production-line equipment can cause serious health issues for consumers and shake public confidence…