Ashland Opens Manufacturing Facility in China

Ashland announced the opening of the company’s new pharmaceutical excipient facility in Nanjing, China. Senior executives at the company attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility on Oct. 25, 2016. Ashland said in a statement that demand for polymer excipients is rising in China, as the country’s pharmaceutical industry moves to modernize oral drug manufacturing and comply with new quality standards in the 2015 edition of the Chinese Pharmacopoeia.

Ashland said it will make multiple cellulose-based excipients available in China including Klucel HPC, Benecel HPMC, Blanose CMC, and Aqualon EMC. The company also plans to make multiple polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-based polymer excipients available, including Plasdone PVP and Polyplasdone PVPP polymers. All products are sold with a registered pharmaceutical excipient certificate, as required by the China Food & Drug Administration.

Alongside Ashland’s new pharmaceutical excipient production facility in China is an advanced quality control laboratory that contains equipment to measure and analyze products throughout the production process. Instruments, from global suppliers, include Fourier transform infrared spectrometers, liquid chromatography systems, and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometers. The quality control system design and analytical equipment allow Ashland to test all excipient products in accordance with Chinese Pharmacopoeia quality standards.