Dive Brief:
- Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has cut the ribbon on GlaxoSmithKline plc's newest aluminum salts manufacturing plant, located in Montrose, Scotland. The site will supply the British drugmaker's vaccine facilities in France, Belgium and Singapore.
- "With this new facility, we’ll be making a key ingredient for approx. 70% of our vaccines portfolio, protecting against diseases such as pneumonia, tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough," said GSK's Montrose Site Director, Les Thomson.
- The £44 million ($56.7 million) plant will produce ingredients for 400 million vaccines per year when fully operational in 2019.
Dive Insight:
Sterile aluminum salts boost the body's response to vaccines. The salts form a key part of over two-thirds of the company's vaccine portfolio, including pneumonia, tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough vaccines. Expanding the Montrose site to include salts production will further add to GSK's capabilities there.
Last June, GSK had previously announced a £29 million investment in respiratory disease manufacturing at the Montrose site, where it has been active at since 1952.
Elsewhere, GSK has been restructuring its manufacturing network's footprint. In June, the company announced investments of over £140 million ($182 million) in Ware and Barnard Castle in England and Montrose in Scotland between 2017 and 2020. Since 2012, overall investments add up to more than £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion).
It's not all upsizing though. GSK also announced in June it would outsource work from its facility in Worthing which, along with the sale of the Horlicks consumer healthcare brand in the U.K., will mean job losses of around 320.