Dive Brief:
- German manufacturer Fresenius Kabi is investing around $250 million to expand its Melrose Park, Illinois site for the production of sterile injectable pharmaceuticals.
- The multi-stage project will start in 2017, with completion scheduled for 2026.
- The ‘urban manufacturing campus’ will include fully-automated aseptic filling lines, freeze-drying capabilities, formulation areas and a warehouse.
Dive Insight:
The generics market is a growing one, as payers and providers look out for ways to keep down their drugs budgets. As a response to this, Fresenius Kabi, a company with a focus on infusion, transfusion and nutrition, is expanding its Melrose Park, Illinois site. Over the ten years of the $250 million project, the location will become a manufacturing ‘campus’ that focuses on the production of generics and sterile injectable pharmaceuticals, growing into one of largest of the company’s 70 sites worldwide.
Based in a network of buildings connected to the original manufacturing site, facilities will include fully-automated and isolated aseptic filling lines, additional freeze-drying capabilities, areas for formulation and storage, and lab and meeting spaces.
“Our goal is to expand our U.S. manufacturing capabilities while ensuring continued compliance with increasing regulatory and quality requirements and improve production capacity and efficiency,” said Steven R. Nowicki, senior vice president of Global Operations for North America, Pharmaceuticals Division, in a Fresenius Kabi press release.
The company and people in the local region expect that the development will benefit the community by providing construction jobs and longer-term employment for the area.