Aesica Comments On API Manufacturing Trends

24 March 2016: Aesica Pharmaceuticals, the leading provider of contract development and manufacturing services for APIs and finished dosage products to the pharmaceutical industry, sees the high levels of regulation, coupled with the continued evolution of the field, which has created challenges in the API manufacturing industry, as actually being a great opportunity to exhibit high quality and regulatory compliance best practice, and to continually increase confidence within the marketplace.

“Competition with low cost suppliers is challenging, yet, again, represents an opportunity for Western suppliers to continue to drive operational efficiency through continuous improvement activities within a controlled and regulated environment in order to be competitive,” commented Ian Muir, managing director of Aesica Pharmaceuticals.

“Overall consolidation of contract partners expands capabilities, and allows for greater control of the supply chain,” he added.

Some pharma ingredient manufacturers have observed a trend towards companies preferring to have ingredients manufactured at locations in the West, because of quality issues in some low cost markets recently and the rising costs of production there. This trend varies according to the phase of development. “When introducing new products to the market, companies tend to favour Western suppliers in order to mitigate risk. This trend differs in relation to compounds which are more advanced in the product life cycle such as generic compounds where there is more evidence of healthy competition between the East and the West,” Ian Muir remarked. Healthcare firm Consort Medical (Hemel Hempstead, UK), acquired Aesica in November 2014. Consort Medical develops and manufactures medical devices for drug delivery, including inhaled, nasal, and injectable products through its operating division Bespak. In addition, Aesica offers a CMO management service whereby third party contractors are managed by Aesica on behalf of a client, creating a single point of contact for the customer, improving visibility and decreasing supply chain complexity,” commented Ian Muir. The services that the group now provides includes finished dose manufacturing, formulation development, API development and manufacture for drugs, together with pilot to high volume manufacturing, prototype development and design for manufacture and concept generation for devices.

Aesica expects its API business to grow further and intends to continue to grow its high potency API manufacturing capabilities in the future.

“We see growth in API as we continue to expand upon our current product portfolio through new process introductions and expansion of our potent manufacturing capabilities,” Ian Muir added.

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