October 14, 2014
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
In light of several U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals for respiratory drugs, GlaxoSmithKline plans to expand production and hiring at its Zebulon facility in North Carolina.
In 1999 the company invested $90 million in the facility, which not only includes building infrastructure, but equipment and contracts with local suppliers for raw materials like plastics.
GSK expects to hire 60 to 70 new jobs. Earlier in the year GSK hired about 850 people at that facility.
“While we’re not hiring thousands of people, we are hiring people,” said John Bolla, director of the Zebulon plant in a statement. “And we do encourage people to consider coming to work for GSK.”
The FDA has approved for use several respiratory drugs manufactured by GSK. Included are: Arnuity Ellipta (fluticasone furoate) for asthma; Incruse Ellipta (umeclidinium inhalation powder) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis and emphysema; Anoro Ellipta (umeclidinium and vilanterol inhalation powder) for COPD, chronic bronchitis and emphysema; and Breo Ellipta (fluticasone furoate and vilanterol inhalation powder) for COPD, chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
GSK recently published positive clinical trials results for its potential asthma compound, mepolizumab.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, data was also presented at the European Respiratory Society’s International Congress in Munich in early September of this year. In addition, the company is developing Relvar Ellipta (fluticasone furoate/vilanterol) for treatment in COPD.
The company earlier in the year signed a joint venture agreement with Switzerland-based Novartis to develop a new consumer healthcare business.
Novartis bought GSK’s oncology products for $14.5 billion with an additional $1.5 billion deliverable on hitting developmental milestones. GSK will pay $7.1 billion and royalties for Novartis’s vaccines business, except its flu vaccines. The joint healthcare business is expected to create about $10.9 billion in annual sales.
Ellipta is GSK’s inhaler device, which was a second-generation inhaler that came after the Advair Diskus. The Diskus device delivered a single strip of compound, but the Ellipta inhaler utilizes two strips to deliver two compounds.
The Ellipta device is being manufactured at the Zebulon plant. The Zebulon facility is the center of GSK’s respiratory manufacturing processes, where it packages and delivers 20 different brands and products.
Products include Potiga, Valtrex and Lamictal. The site also packages solid dose products manufactured at other facilities.
