West Pharmaceutical India Packaging, an indirect subsidiary of USA-based drug delivery component supplier West Pharmaceutical Services, has begun construction of its new moulding facility located in Sri City, India. The plant, located on 784,000 square feet of land (72,800 square metres — approximately ten football pitches) will become part of West’s global supply chain for its pharmaceutical packaging components.
Gaining planning permission for this plant represents a major achievement for West. It demonstrates that the company has been able to overcome foreign investment rules in India which limit foreign ownership of Indian companies.
In June 2012, West signed a 99-year lease on the 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 special factors specific to being part of an SEZ.
“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, West’s chairman and chief executive officer. “The plant in India will help West meet market demand and establishes a West presence near our pharmaceutical customers in India.”
“On behalf of West’s board of directors, I would like to thank the many representatives of the Indian government for their support throughout the planning process. Our future facility in Sri City will provide much needed capacity to satisfy the needs of a dynamic, growing market in both India and the Asia Pacific region.”
Construction of phase 1 of the project began in August 2012 on a metal seal assembly and moulding facility that will produce metal and elastomeric pharmaceutical components used in primary packaging of injectable medicines manufactured by West’s pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical customers in India and the wider Asia Pacific region. The built-up area of phase 1 will be 15,300 square meters, 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 meters at the completion of phase 3 in 2023.
“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,” said Warwick Bedwell, President, Pharmaceutical Packaging Systems, Asia Pacific Region. “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 United States Food and Drug Administration and Heath Canada’s Bureau of Pharmaceutical Sciences.