Mayne Pharma will invest $65 million to significantly expand facilities and equipment at its site in Greenville, N.C. The company’s plans include the greenfield construction of a new, 126,000-square-foot, large-scale oral-dose manufacturing facility, along with the repurposing of existing space to expand contract services.

When the new facility becomes fully operational in 2018, it will more than double Mayne Pharma’s manufacturing capacity in the United States. The company, which currently employs 350 people in North Carolina, anticipates hiring up to 110 more scientists, quality assurance specialists, manufacturing operators and technicians to support the expanded operations footprint.

“Expanding our Greenville operations solidifies Mayne Pharma’s aspirations in the U.S. market, while building our talented workforce. Once operational, we can take on new and larger products, specifically those that rely upon our company’s drug-delivery and potent handling expertise,” said Stefan Cross, president of Mayne Pharma USA.

Mayne Pharma will construct the new facility on a campus that houses Mayne Pharma’s products business, along with its contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) business, Metrics Contract Services.

Founded in Greenville in 1994, Metrics started as a laboratory providing analytical chemistry support services to pharmaceutical companies. The company steadily grew into a full-service pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organization that also develops, manufactures and markets branded and generic drug products. Metrics was acquired in 2012 by Mayne Pharma, a publicly held (ASX: MYX) specialty pharmaceutical company headquartered in Adelaide, Australia. Today, Mayne Pharma’s operations in the United States consist of:

• Metrics Contract Services, which provides contract pharmaceutical development services to third parties globally.
• U.S. Generic Products, which develops, manufactures, markets and distributes generic drug products.
• U.S. Specialty Brands, which is responsible for the marketing and distribution of branded pharmaceuticals within the United States.

The new facility — which will be constructed to meet international regulatory standards — will allow Mayne Pharma to expand development, manufacturing and packaging operations for generic and specialty drug products, and expand services to Metrics clients with commercial manufacturing requirements.The increase in capacity — and the introduction of commercial-scale manufacturing of modified release and highly potent drug products — will support on-market products, as well as a robust pipeline of products under development

The company has been working with state and local governmental agencies in support of this capital expansion and secured funding and incentives worth up to $2.7 million. The expansion is made possible in part by a performance-based grant of $550,000 from the One North Carolina Fund, which provides financial assistance, through local governments, to attract business projects that will stimulate economic activity and create new jobs within the state.