Pfizer ($PFE) has thawed relations with the U.K. by opening £7 million ($10.9 million) worth of cold storage improvements at its packaging and distribution facility in Havant, near Portsmouth.
The new addition is believed to be one of the largest cold storage facilities in Europe with 3,500 pallet spaces and the ability to store up to 38.4 million doses of temperature-sensitive vaccines and injectable medicines. It also has a high-speed vaccines packaging line that reportedly is the fastest complex syringe packaging line in the world.
The additions are on top of the roughly £42 million ($65.7 million) invested at the former Wyeth site since 2008. Pfizer acquired Wyeth in 2009.
InPharm reports that Pfizer is "keen" to show off U.K. investments after announcing plans to close its research and development facility in Sandwich, Kent, with the excise of about 2,000 jobs there.
Jon Tucker, site leader for Pfizer at Havant, said the city was chosen for the investment because the employees working there are already specialists in medical storage. "It all goes together to make something very special, a £7 million building that has 3,500 pallet spaces to store life-changing and lifesaving medicines. These get shipped to 122 destinations around the world--we are a global supplier," Tucker told Portsmouth's The News.
- here's the InPharm story
- get more from Portsmouth's The News