Dive Brief:
- Novartis has hired Pasadena, CA.-based Jacobs Engineering Group to expand its manufacturing facility in Huningue, France.
- The expansion will increase the site's capacity by 70%, add about 100 jobs and create a second line of purification that will allow multiple drugs to be manufactured at one time.
- The $100 million expansion project will be completed in about four years.
Dive Insight:
The facility already manufactures most of Novartis' monoclonal antibody products, including psoriasis drugs and other anti-inflammatory compounds.
"The new project is to expand the manufacturing capacity at the site to meet the anticipated growth of the products currently allocated at Huningue. The site manufactures several active substances used in innovative medicines for the treatment of asthma, psoriasis treatments as well as anti-rejection drug for kidney transplantation," said a Novartis spokesman via email.
The Swiss pharma's anti-inflammatory drug Cosentyx (secukinumab) is expected to grow significantly; the drug has shown efficacy advantages over Johnson & Johnson's Stelara (ustekinumab) and has been stealing market share from long-time leaders like AbbVie's Humira (adalimumab). It recently gained another backing from the UK's pricing watchdog NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). Cosentyx is on track to be one of the strongest launches the company has ever had and Novartis expects peak sales of as much as $4 billion annually.