Evonik has partnered with a European pharmaceutical company to open a new 70 m3 manufacturing facility to produce APIs. The new facility, located in Nanning, China, can quickly double its capacity if required. Evonik's collaboration partner has contracted for API services over the next several years. The plant will produce cGMP compliant amino acids and amino-acid derivatives. It is part of the Health & Nutrition business unit.
"The new plant is an expression of our horizontal integration strategy," said Hans-Josef Ritzert, an Evonik Business Head. The term "horizontal integration" stands for a network of western (Europe, NAFTA) and Asian production sites from which Evonik offers customers tailored and exclusive solutions along the entire value chain of active pharmaceutical ingredients. "With this plant we will further consolidate our position as a high performing partner for exclusive synthesis," added Ritzert.
This is another example of a raw material supplier to the pharma industry relocating a manufacturing site to the East - and specifically to China. This, despite, certain reservations among many Western pharma & biotech company Quality departments concerning the sourcing or raw materials in China due to well documented series of quality lapses - some with deadly consequences.
However, I believe that while - right now - some Companies are gun-shy of Chinese source raw materials that this will necessarily be a passing situation. It is nearly inconceivable to me that Eastern countries like China, India, etc. could be excluded from the supply chain for any lengthy period into the future. These are rapidly growing economies that will have too much global impact to be excluded. That also becomes increasingly undesirable as Western manufacturers continue to install plants in this region - clearly you will want to source from these areas for these local plants if for no other reason.
The Region is here to stay and we need to work to get raise the bar more rapidly in areas where the quality standards are currently lax. As opposed to excluding these groups from the supply chain altogether.
Posted by Bruce Lehr April 21st 2010.
An update on plant becoming operational from inPharma Technologist.com
http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Materials-Formulation/Evonik-s-China-API-plant-operational?utm_source=RSS_text_news
Posted by: Bruce Lehr | 05/03/2010 at 12:39 PM