ST. LOUIS, Missouri, October 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAFC, a member of the Sigma-Aldrich Group , announced today its Pharma business segment’s medicinal chemistry facility located in Bangalore, India, is ready for operation. The 139,000 sq. ft. facility represents a $12 million investment and is considered a continuation of SAFC’s “build or acquire” strategy, put in place to meet the increased demands for its medicinal chemistry and cGMP manufacturing services.
SAFC Bangalore features over 60,000 sq. ft. of production and R&D laboratory space, including manufacturing suites for chemical development and production to 50-liter scale and an on-site warehouse. The operation offers a complete range of pre-clinical, process development and scale-up services combined with access to the favorable economics of India. Procedures are in place to work in alignment with SAFC’s Manchester, UK, medicinal chemistry operations, ensure intellectual property protection, and to provide seamless technology transfer to SAFC manufacturing facilities worldwide.
“SAFC’s integrated chemistry platform has been developed to provide flexible and responsive support for all stages of customer drug discovery, development and commercialization programs,” said Frank Wicks, SAFC President. “The opening of this facility provides our customers an efficient alternative for superior follow-on library exploration and development of building blocks, scaffolds and key intermediates.”
SAFC Press Release
This announcement follows recent SAFC capacity and technology expansion activities. These include: the purchase of the SAFC Arklow, Ireland facility; a large-scale API manufacturing site with 90,000 liters of total cGMP capacity; the acquisition of SAFC Pharmorphix, a Cambridge, UK based solid-state research studies company; and an $18 million dollar expansion of the SAFC Madison high-potency chemistry facility. In addition, seven-day-per-week workshift extensions have been introduced at the company’s SAFC Gillingham UK API manufacturing site and its SAFC Manchester UK medicinal chemistry and development facilities.
About SAFC: SAFC is the custom manufacturing group within Sigma-Aldrich that focuses on both biochemical production and the manufacturing of complex, multi-step organic synthesis of APIs and key intermediates. SAFC has manufacturing facilities around the world dedicated to providing manufacturing services for companies requiring a reliable partner to produce their custom manufactured materials. SAFC has four operating segments - SAFC Pharma, SAFC Supply Solutions, SAFC Biosciences, and SAFC Hitech - and had annual sales of $437million in 2005. SAFC is one of the world’s 10 largest fine chemical businesses.
About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company. Its biochemical and organic chemical products and kits are used in scientific and genomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical and other high technology manufacturing. The Company has customers in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals, and in industry. Over one million scientists and technologists use its products. Sigma-Aldrich operates in 35 countries and has 7,200 employees providing excellent service worldwide. Sigma-Aldrich is committed to Accelerating Customer Success through Leadership in Life Science, High Technology and Service. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its award-winning Web site at http://sigma-aldrich.com.
Cautionary Statement: This release contains forward-looking statements relating to future performance, goals, strategic actions and initiatives and similar intentions and beliefs and other statements regarding the Company’s expectations, goals, beliefs, intentions and the like, which involve assumptions regarding the Company’s operations and conditions in the markets the Company serves. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
SAFC
CONTACT: FORWARD INQUIRIES TO: Dr. Frank Wicks, President, SAFC,+1-(314)-286-8008. MEDIA INQUIRIES: Mr. Richard Kerns, Northern Exposure,+44-161-728-5880
