AGC Pharma Chemicals Europe, part of Japanese group AGC (formerly known as Asahi Glass Chemical), plans to expand its facilities in Barcelona, Spain, in order to meet accelerating demand.

The company will upgrade its existing production facilities to achieve 1.3 times current capacity and build a new R&D facility that will be able to develop processes from lab-scale to commercial production. AGC will also add a new micronization facility to respond to the increasing demand for micronization of APIs.

The expanded production is scheduled to start in May 2022 while the R&D facility is planned to begin operations in March 2021. Investment costs were not revealed.

The Tokyo-headquartered group acquired contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) AGC Pharma Chemicals Europe – then known as Malgrat Pharma Chemicals – from Boehringer Ingelheim in March 2019. The acquisition was made so that AGC could establish a synthetic pharmaceutical production capability in Europe in order to supply APIs and their intermediates.

AGC said the synthetic pharmaceutical CDMO market is growing at above 7% annually, while the number of contracts it handles is growing even faster.

The group has committed to position its life-sciences related business, including the pharmaceutical CDMO sector, as one of its strategic initiatives and is aiming to achieve sales of above 100 billion yen by 2025.

Last month, AGC made a tender offer to buy Italian biotech Molecular Medicine, which focuses on the research, development, manufacturing and clinical validation of gene & cell therapies.