India's Aurobindo Pharma Breaks Ground on U.S. HQ, Will Create Up to 400 Jobs
August 3, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
EAST WIMDSOR, N.J. – Aurobindo USA, a subsidiary of India-based Aurobindo Pharma , has broken ground on its planned 575,000 square-foot manufacturing and distribution facility—a site expected to bring up to 400 new jobs.
The company is currently manning a 43,000 square foot facility in the area and told NJ Biz that it anticipates having 100 new hires by the end of the year. The company currently runs two facilities in central New Jersey for a total of about 300,000 square feet of laboratory, manufacturing, distribution and administrative space. Aurobindo USA has a broad portfolio of generic drugs that includes more than 125 product families and 450 individual product packages. Aurobindo USA is based in New Jersey. The East Windsor site will be the new corporate home of the company, Robert Cunard, chief executive officer of Aurobindo USA told NJ Biz.
The New Jersey site is not the only U.S. facility the company is building. Earlier this spring the company announced it planned to expand its presence in the Research Triangle Park area in North Carolina. Reports from this spring showed that Aurobindo was prepared to expand in Durham, N.C., bringing an additional 275 jobs—despite some fallout over that state’s controversial bathroom bill, HB2, which critics have decried as discriminatory to transgender people.
Ninad Deshpanday, president of R&D for Aurobindo Pharma USA Inc., said North Carolina “has one of the best talent pools in the specialty pharma R&D and manufacturing sectors,” the Triangle Business Journal reported in April, citing a press release issued by the N.C. Department of Commerce. Deshpanday said the company was looking forward to establishing a large footprint in the state.
Aurobindo could use the space if it is successful in buying a slate of Teva Pharmaceuticals ’ drugs in the U.K., Ireland and Iceland. Prices for the portfolio of drugs are expected to reach up to $1.5 billion.
While Aurobindo may increase its portfolio through acquisition, the company has had a good year so far in clearing U.S. regulatory hurdles for its own drug offerings. In late July, Aurobindo received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its Rosuvastatin Calcium Tablets to reduce to reduce elevated total C, LDL-C, ApoB, non HDL-C and TG levels in cardiovascular patients. That approval came two months after the FDA cleared Aurobindo’s Hydromorphone Hydrochloride Tablets to relieve moderate to severe pain in patients where the use of an opioid is appropriate. Also in May, the FDA approved the company’s Bupivacaine Hydrochloride Injection USP for the production of local or regional anesthesia or analgesia for surgery, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and for obstetrical procedures, the company said.