West Pharmaceutical India Packaging breaks ground in Sri City

Warwick Bedwell

West Pharmaceutical India Packaging, an indirect subsidiary of US-based West Pharmaceutical Services hosted a ground breaking ceremony to mark the start of construction of its new compression molding facility located in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The plant will become part of West’s global supply chain for its world-class, standard-setting pharmaceutical packaging components.

“We are experiencing a very exciting period of growth and business expansion in Asia and we are proud to begin construction of our first facility in India,” said Donald E Morel, Jr, Chairman and CEO, West.

In June 2012, West signed a 99-year lease on 72,800 square metres of land in the Sri City Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Sri City offers all the advantages of an SEZ with a metropolitan location and was selected primarily on suitability because of land, availability of utilities, labour suitability, logistics, quality of life and SEZ special factors.

Construction work of phase I has begun in August 2012 on a metal seal assembly and compression molding facility that will produce metal and elastomeric pharma components used in primary packaging of injectable medicines manufactured by West’s pharma and biopharma customers in India and the wider Asia Pacific region. The built-up area of phase I will be 15,300 square metres, with commercial production of metal components expected to begin in the first quarter of 2014. Production of a range of West’s high-quality standard elastomeric components is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2015.

The capability to produce ready-to-sterilise components will be available by 2016. The built-up area for the plant and office will eventually reach 37,700 square metres at the completion of phase III in 2023.

Warwick Bedwell, President, Pharmaceutical Packaging Systems, Asia Pacific Region said, “This investment is important to our strategy of partnering with customers in India and the Asia Pacific region to help them provide medicines to patients more efficiently, reliably and safely. When the facility is completed, we anticipate a reduction in lead times for supply to our customers in India. By leveraging our global sourcing activities and process engineering expertise, we will be able to carefully manage the overall costs of production.”

West plans to file Drug Master Files for the plant with the US FDA and Heath Canada’s Bureau of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

EP News Bureau