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Piramal Pharma Solutions to invest £55m expanding two sites
Piramal Pharma Solutions, a pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing company, has announced the expansion of its antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) capabilities at the Grangemouth facility in Scotland, alongside investment in new active pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) infrastructure at its Morpeth facility in Northumberland.
Together, these expansions and upgrades represent a total investment of around £55m in the company’s UK-based drug development and manufacturing capabilities, as well as new employment opportunities for technical and operational staff.
In the first phase of the Grangemouth site expansion, two new ADC manufacturing suites, operational by Q3 2023, will be added to the existing three. The building has been designed to accommodate further expansion, with planned future phases that include a new sterile fill/finish suite dedicated to ADCs and two additional large-scale manufacturing suites capable of handling increased batch sizes. A new customer experience centre is also being constructed for clients who are visiting the site during development and/or manufacturing activities.
Piramal Pharma Solutions is making a total investment of £55m at two UK sites (Grangemouth & Morpeth) to expand and increase production capacity / Picture: PPS
Peter DeYoung, chief executive officer at Piramal Pharma Solutions, said: “We are delighted to announce the capacity expansion of our Grangemouth facility in the UK. This new development will more than double our ADC production capacity, strengthening our ability to service customers throughout the entire drug lifecycle. The primary driver behind this investment is the demand for commercial ADCs, coupled with a strong pipeline for clinical materials. This growth is a validation of Piramal Pharma Solutions’ strong focus on patient centricity, its proven track record of service delivery, and the strategic initiatives and deep customer relationships.”
The Grangemouth expansion represents an investment of £45m, including a grant of £2.4m from Scottish Enterprise, Scotland’s national economic development agency.
Adrian Gillespie, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise, added, “Piramal’s investment is tremendous news for Scotland’s life sciences sector, one of the largest life sciences clusters in Europe, and is creating new, high-quality jobs that are crucial to our economic recovery. With Scottish Enterprise support, the company’s Grangemouth site expansion proposals will deliver more R&D and production capacity for the development, scale up and commercial manufacture of drugs in the global fight against cancer.”
The two expansions will each generate local employment opportunities for skilled workers / Picture: PPS
The Grangemouth expansion, which is also client co-funded, is designed to facilitate the continued evolution of the business through the commercialisation of customer products, together with satisfying the strong pipeline of early phase clinical demand. The new facility is being built on a 5-acre brownfield plot less than 100 meters from the existing site and is designed to meet the highest standards of global compliance. It is expected that this expansion will create approximately 40-50 new jobs, bringing the total number of employees at the site to more than 250.
The investment in API capabilities at the Morpeth site, which is valued at approximately £10m, includes new equipment, infrastructure, and utility systems. It is intended to meet increased market demand from global API customers while also improving PPS’ carbon footprint by replacing obsolete equipment with new, energy-efficient alternatives. More than 400 people are employed at Morpeth, with around 160 directly in API operations. PPS is investing £8m directly, while the UK government is contributing £2m to the project.