PharmaBlock Acquires Manufacturing Facility in China

PharmaBlock Sciences, a pharmaceutical R&D chemistry product and service provider based in Nanjing, China, acquired a GMP-compliant manufacturing facility in Shangyu, China from Porton Pharma Solutions, the company announced in a Sept. 25, 2018 press release. The site will expand PharmaBlock’s manufacturing capacity for building blocks, registered starting materials, and non-GMP and GMP intermediates. Phase II construction, to begin this year, will establish API manufacturing capabilities.

The 1,436,000-ft² (approximately 133,400-m²) site, located in a state-level chemical industry park in Shangyu, Zhejiang Province, has been operating as a multi-purpose, GMP-compliant facility since December 2015. Assets include reactors from 300 L to 6300 L, with more than 180 m³of combined reactor volume. The facility is equipped to practice a wide range of chemistry synthesis and enabling technologies. 

“PharmaBlock’s new Shangyu Site is well-positioned to respond to customers’ increasing demand for preclinical-, clinical-, and commercial-stage manufacturing of intermediates. The acquisition of this site provides additional GMP capacity and supplements our existing assets in Shandong Dezhou site,” said Dr. Minmin Yang, chairman of PharmaBlock, in the press release. “We will initiate the Phase II construction of [the] Shangyu facility within this year to establish API manufacturing capabilities. In this way, PharmaBlock will soon be able to offer customers an integrated supply chain from building blocks, non-GMP intermediates, and GMP intermediates, to APIs.”

Earlier in September, the company appointed a new chief technology officer, Dr. Shijie Zhang. The company said that this addition to the team would help it improve its quality team and competence in process development and manufacturing, strengthening its contract development and manufacturing organization business. 

Over the past two years, PharmaBlock has expanded its process chemistry capabilities and implemented enabling technologies including flow chemistry, biocatalysis, photochemistry, electrosynthesis, and fluorination. The company’s process R&D center in China is sited in Nanjing, where the company has purchased another 330,000-ft²land for a new R&D center. In 2016, PharmaBlock acquired Shangdong Diai Biotechnology as its first pilot plant and manufacturing site. The company also boosted its footprint in the United States with the renovation of its new Process R&D Center outside of Philadelphia. As Phase I of the PharmaBlock Pennsylvania site, the 7000-ft² facility is now in full operation. 

Source: PharmaBlock