Novasep investing in another API expansion

French contract pharmaceutical manufacturer and supplier Novasep is again expanding its production capacity, the third, and largest, project it has started or completed this year.

The company said it will invest €30 million ($38.6 million) in what it calls the "world's largest chromatography plant." It will erect the facility on its existing site in Mourenx, France. The company expects it to be built and validated within 18 months.

The operation is for large volumes of a highly purified API. It was designed in-house by Novasep engineers and the solvent recovery system is expected to recycle 99.9% of solvents for high efficiency and sustainability. Novasep says the demand for this kind of technology has grown as "drugs in development and reaching the market become more complex and specific."

Novasep earlier this year tapped €40 million ($53 million) of €310 million ($413 million) in a recapitalization fund to finance "growth projects." The company added a 2,600-square-foot facility to the 6,500-square-foot operation it already has in the Pudong district of Shanghai where it makes purification systems. That project was aimed at the growing Chinese drug manufacturing market. It also invested €3 million ($3.7 million) to expand its highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredient production at a plant in Le Mans, France. It bolstered its production of anti-cancer APIs to snag a bigger share of the market for targeted cancer therapies.

- here's the release