Purdue Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Education Center Opens its Doors

Purdue University’s (West Lafayette, IN, www.purdue.edu) Chao Center for Industrial Pharmacy and Contract Manufacturing (www.thechaocenter.com) is scheduled to open for business in June after two years of construction (Pharm. Technol. 27 [10], 22 [2003]). The $6.5 million, 12,000-ft² facility will help develop drugs to treat diseases that mainly affect underprivileged populations. The center also will focus on producing less-profitable drugs that are made in small volumes. In partnership with Eli Lilly and Co., the first product expected to come off the manufacturing line will be an antibiotic for treating multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis. Batch testing will begin next month.

As one of five university-affiliated manufacturing plants in the United States, the center will give students opportunities to learn about pharmaceutical production through internships and scholarships. In a press release, John M. Pezzuto, Purdue’s Dean of the College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Health Sciences said, “Purdue pharmacy students will be able to familiarize themselves with good manufacturing practices procedures as they watch these processes in a working manufacturing and development facility.”

The plant currently is undergoing the final stages of regulatory approval.