DuPont today announced the opening of its new DuPont Liveo Healthcare manufacturing site in Cooper River, South Carolina, to help better serve customers worldwide, a company statement said.
The site, located in Berkeley County, will be operated using the same-quality standards as DuPont’s healthcare industries materials site, the company’s long-standing biopharma manufacturing site in Hemlock, Michigan. The Cooper River site will bring additional extrusion capacity online over the next two years to serve strategic customers in the short term and expand its Liveo Healthcare customer base with additional supply in the medium term.
“The biopharma processing manufacturing investment at Cooper River is a key milestone in our growth strategy; it supports our customers’ expansion and contributes to business continuity,” said DuPont Healthcare and Specialty Lubricants Global Business Director Eugenio Toccalino. “We’re committed to investing in our healthcare business, and our recent expansions help us offer a highly reliable and sustainable product supply.”
DuPont Liveo Healthcare is also expanding its manufacturing footprint regionally to support customers locally, which will help alleviate supply pressure and allow customers to grow in their respective markets. In the second half of 2022, the company expects to add biopharma silicone tubing capacity in China to serve the fast-growing customers in the region.
“Through a strong, close collaboration between our DuPont team and our contractor partners, construction of the new Cooper River site was completed in 18 months, without a single safety incident,” said Bill Alexander, Cooper River site and unit leader for the DuPont Liveo, and Molykote plants. “The site has enabled the creation of 25 positions at start-up, with an additional 25 positions expected to be created as we ramp up operations over the next two years,” added Alexander.
“For more than 14 years, DuPont Cooper River has continued to diversify and reinvest in new products ensuring the viability of this Berkeley County facility. Lifesciences and biotechnology innovation is a growing sector with an $11 billion annual economic impact and over 40,000 jobs in the State of South Carolina. We thank DuPont for their commitment to this community and for creating more high-paying jobs for the local workforce,” said Kristen O Lanier, Berkeley County Economic Development Director. In 2021, the DuPont Cooper River site expanded to include manufacturing of DuPont Molykote specialty lubricants.
As a trusted partner in the healthcare processing industry, DuPont has developed a leadership position within the industry by building upon more than seven decades of foundational capabilities that serve the highly regulated biopharma market. With these recent investments, DuPont is committed to serving the healthcare market and its customers more than ever, offering high-quality, high-performance solutions; application and material science expertise; and strong regulatory support to address healthcare customers’ specific needs and challenges.