The company said the total investment of about $100 million is in response to strong demand for its services, adding that the building will be constructed with additional room for further expansion.

This latest project is in addition to a 30% expansion announced in April 2020 and due online in May 2022, which includes new facilities for handling highly potent APIs (HPAPIs), such as cancer therapy drugs, for which demand has been increasing in recent years. According to AGC, the synthetic pharmaceutical CDMO market is growing at 7% or more annually.

Last November, AGC also announced it would hike production at its plant in Mikata Kaminaka-gun in Fukui, Japan. The additional capacity is expected to start up in the first quarter of 2024.

Under its medium-term management plan AGC plus-2023, the AGC Group has positioned Life Science, which includes its pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and synthetic agrochemical CDMO services, as one of its strategic businesses, adding that it will continue to make aggressive acquisitions and capital investments.

The group is aiming to grow sales from its Life Science business from 44.9 billion yen in 2018 to 135 billion yen in 2022, and 200 billion yen or more in 2025.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist