Dive Brief:
- Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceuticals recently broke ground on expanding a manufacturing facility in Grange Castle, Ireland.
- The existing site will be expanded to include a standalone, high-containment production facility dedicated to manufacturing its oncology product Ninlaro (ixazomib).
- The investment, announced at the end of December, will add 40 new jobs over the next two years and is expected to be completed by the second half of 2018.
Dive Insight:
The construction of the plant is slated to begin this month and will give Takeda "crucial in-house manufacturing capacity to meet the increasing demand" for Ninlaro, said Thomas Wozniewski, Global Manufacturing & Supply Officer of Takeda, in a statement.
Takeda is putting €40 million ($44.9 million) into the facility and says it will bring "the Drug Substance, Drug Product, Primary and Secondary Packaging and QC processes all under one roof."
Ninlaro, a once-weekly protease inhibitor, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in November 2015 for the treatment of multiple myeloma. The drug was also was approved by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in March 2017 and launched in May as the first oral proteasome inhibitor in Japan, in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The drug has also been approved in the EU.
The company cited Ninlaro as a major growth driver during its full-year 2016 earnings, which were presented in May. Sales of the drug were ¥ 29.4 billion ($267 million) for the full year 2016. "This product has experienced a strong uptake in the U.S. supported by its profile of efficacy, safety and convenience, and the launch is progressing across Europe," the company said at the time.