GlaxoSmithKline unveiled a $300 million vaccine manufacturing facility it's developing in Pennsylvania as it gears up for a major push into the U.S. market. While a host of vaccine manufacturers have been moving outside the U.S., Glaxo says that it is moving vaccine manufacturing closer to the U.S. market, where it could more easily meet any demand triggered by a sudden flu pandemic.
"We really believe that Marietta will be a unique and premiere facility in our global network," Peter Lammers, vice president of GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine-business unit, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Twenty years ago Glaxo had only one vaccine available in the U.S. Today it has 11, including a rotavirus vaccine and the flu vaccine Fluarix. An FDA inspection of the plant is scheduled for this year and GSK says the facility will be fully operational in 2013.
- read the story in the Philadelphia Inquirer