Cambrex Corporation to Hire a Dozen New R&D Scientists in Expansion
August 31, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Cambrex Corporation is making a $3.2 million upgrade to a North Carolina facility that will allow the company to bring on additional researchers. The investment is a continuation of the company’s ongoing investments in small molecule manufacturing.
On Wednesday, the New Jersey-based company said the investment will be used to expand the company’s laboratory space in High Point, N.C., which is located about 90 minutes from the Research Triangle Park area. The funding will be used to add an additional 11,000 square feet of analytical laboratory space, the company said. The High Point site already has about 35,000 square feet of space. Before any additions are made, the site currently has a 15,000 square foot chemistry laboratory and a 13,000 square foot pilot plant. The site also has a reactor capacity ranging from 20-liters to 2,000 liters, according to information on the company website. The site is licensed to manufacture Schedule II to Schedule V controlled substances.
The investment comes in response to growing customer demand for analytical development and validation services in support of cGMP products at the clinical stage, Cambrex said in its announcement.
Cambrex acquired the site in October 2016. It was previously a PharmaCore Inc. site. The company said the North Carolina site enhanced Cambrex's portfolio of small molecule API services and complemented its “large scale, multi-purpose manufacturing facilities in the United States and Europe.”
The High Point facility is used to manufacture and scale-up small molecule APIs and intermediates to support clinical trials from Phase I to Phase III. The site currently employs about 60 in various roles, according to its website.
Cambrex said the $3.2 million upgrade to the facility will include new equipment such as HPLCs, mass spectrometers and support equipment. The laboratory will be used to broaden analytical support for customer projects at the High Point site, and forms part of a strategic plan to support Cambrex's global analytical development and method validation needs, the company said.
The upgrades to the facility will begin later this year. It is unknown when the hiring of the new R&D employees will begin. The positions will be for 12 new analytical development scientists, Cambrex said in its announcement.
"There is a growing demand in the industry to better understand and characterize APIs and process intermediates at the clinical stage," Brian Swierenga, head of operations and site director for Cambrex High Point, said in a statement. "This expansion reinforces Cambrex's position as a leader in small molecule API clinical and commercial manufacturing while enabling the organization to stay ahead of regulatory requirements."
The $3.2 million investment is not the first one the company has made at the High Point facility. In May, the company increased pilot scale manufacturing capacity at the site with an additional investment of about $2 million.
The High Point site is not the only one to receive an upgrade by Cambrex. In August, the company announced a plan to invest $24 million into a new facility in Charles River, Iowa. The new facility will be used to manufacture highly potent APIs.