With plans for further expansion in China, Japan’s Eisai has opened a new solid dose plant there which will be able to produce 3 billion tablets a year.
The drugmaker said it has completed construction of the oral solid dose production facility and an administration building at the site in Suzhou, China, and expects to start commercial production there in the second half of this year.
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The 20,240 square meter (217,861 square foot) facility includes production, packaging and storage space. It will produce Eisai’s, Alzheimer’s treatment Aricept and heartburn med Pariet, along with other products. The company said it will allow Eisai to double its capacity at the site. Eisai will close its existing facility there when this one starts production.
This expansion follow’s Eisai’s construction of a 5,690 square meter parenteral production facility at the site in 2014.
Eisai has revamped some operations in the last few years in the face of generic competition, including giving up manufacturing operations in North Carolina in 2015. At the same time it has expanded in China, buying Chinese generics manufacturer Liaoning TianYi Biological Pharmaceutical that year in a deal worth RMB 500 million ($78.2 million), getting a portfolio of about 90 products.