In Ireland, US drugmaker MSD has opened its new facility in Dunboyne, County Meath, and has expanded its Carlow site. MSD says it has invested more than €1 billion at both sites, creating 670 new jobs and increasing the number of employees in Ireland to 3,100. 100 of the newly created positions remain to be filled.
PPG has completed an expansion of its powder coatings plant in Sumaré, Brazil. The $2.7 million project increased the production capacity of the facility by 40%. The unit is expected to reach full capacity this month.
Sanner, a German contract manufacturing and development organization (CDMO), is expanding its production capacity in the Asia-Pacific region with the opening of a second manufacturing facility in Kunshan, China.
With the inauguration of a new research building in the Shanghai Technology Park, Solvay has completed the expansion of its China Research & Innovation Center (R&I). The company said that it has invested more than 4 billion RMB (approximately €500 million) in its Chinese R&I hub since 2005.
CDMO CordenPharma, a specialist in active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), excipients, drug products and packaging services, inaugurated an increased commercial peptide production capacity with newly-upgraded facilities at its Colorado site in the US, which the company says is the world's largest solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) manufacturing facility.
Austrian fibers producer Lenzing has completed technical improvements to its Purwakarta site in Indonesia. According to Lenzing, it has invested more than €100 million since 2021 to convert the location into a supplier of specialty viscose fibers.
Bayer’ Crop Science division plans to invest €220 million in a new research and development (R&D) facility at its Monheim, Germany site. This is the company’s largest single investment in its crop protection business in Germany since the founding of the Monheim campus in 1979, Bayer said.
Covestro has completed construction on a new production facility for polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) in Shanghai, China.
Polish chemical company Grupa Azoty wants to build a new concentrated ammonium nitrate solution plant at its site in Tarnów, Poland. The company announced that it has signed a contract with Thyssenkrupp Uhde for the preparation of licensing documentation and the supply of all process equipment for the plant.
Finnish contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Biovian, specializing in biopharmaceuticals, is investing more than €50 million to expand its manufacturing facility in Turku, Finland.
Braskem has completed the expansion of production capacity for its biobased ethylene plant in the petrochemical complex of Triunfo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Upperton Pharma Solutions, a UK contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has completed construction of its new development and GMP manufacturing headquarters in Nottingham, UK. The company said it has invested £15 million in the new 50,000-square-foot facility.
After building up manufacturing footholds outside the US, including in Australia, Kenya, South Korea, Canada and the UK, vaccine specialist Moderna is planning to build a new plant closer to its home base in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
WuXi STA has added two reactors at its Changzhou campus in China, enhancing capacity and capability at its TIDES contract research, development and manufacturing platform for oligonucleotide, peptide and related synthetic conjugates. The reactors have capacity of 2,000 liters each, taking total volume for solid-phase peptide synthesizers to more than 10,000 liters.
Germany’s Merck plans to invest some €300 million in an integrated specialty gas plant in Hometown, Pennsylvania, to support the development of its semiconductor business.
Genentech, the US biotech arm of Swiss pharma giant Roche, is building a new small-batch biologics manufacturing facility at its Oceanside campus in California, USA. Groundbreaking took place on Feb. 10.
Arkema has doubled capacity for its Reafree-branded powder polyester resins at its Navi Mumbai facility in India. The French chemical producer said the upgrade reinforces its leadership position in the global powder coatings market and its commitment to developing very low-VOC technologies.
Brenntag has opened a new facility in Zarate, Argentina, unifying its operations in Buenos Aires into a single site and expanding its capabilities to customers. The site comprises offices, warehouses, storage tanks, three tank truck unloading spaces, two drumming stations and a mixing and blending building.
Germany’s BioNTech said it plans to accelerate and broaden the clinical development of its cancer immunotherapy pipeline in the Asia-Pacific region by expanding its clinical footprint to East Asia, specifically Taiwan.
Specialty chemicals producer Clariant said it will invest 80 million Swiss francs to increase output of existing products in the portfolio it manufactures at Daya Bay, Huizhou, China, as well as introducing new products there by the end of 2024.
Pfizer is planning to invest $750 million in its Kalamazoo County, Michigan, production site – one of its biggest – to increase output of injectables and vaccines, including the investigational mRNA flu shot currently in Phase 3 clinical trials.
WuXi STA has started up a new parenteral formulation line at its drug product site in Wuxi City, China. The company’s second line for parenteral drug product clinical and commercial manufacturing to go on stream this year has an annual capacity of 10 million units.
Responding to rising market demand, Japan’s Fujifilm is spending $188 million to establish a manufacturing facility for cell culture media in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA. The site – Fujifilm’s fifth worldwide – will be operated by subsidiary Fujifilm Irvine Scientific.
PPG has announced separate projects in Mexico and the US to expand capacity for powder coatings and adhesives and sealants respectively.
WeylChem is investing about €15 million to upgrade glyoxal production at its site in Lamotte, France. A new plant, which will increase capacity by approximately a third, is expected to start operating in early 2024.
Yara International has outlined an ambitious growth plan for its Clean Ammonia business, with “significant” investment decisions targeted over the next three years.
Full-service CDMO CordenPharma is making a major investment to increase lipid manufacturing capacity at its CordenPharma Chenôve facility near Dijon, France. The project is one of 25 based on mRNA technology that the French government is backing with altogether €585 million.
As demand for polyamide (nylon) continues to skyrocket and the market tightens, BASF has become the second major producer to announce a fresh investment in one of the polymer’s starting materials, hexamethylenediamine (HMD).
US paints and coatings group PPG has announced plans to invest more than $10 million to expand production of OEM coatings at its site in Weingarten, Germany. An addition to its existing facility will be able to produce more than 5,000 t/y of waterborne basecoats when it goes on stream in the second quarter of 2022.
French CDMO GTP Bioways, a specialist in biotherapies and nanotherapies, is investing €12 million in two new biopharmaceutical production lines at its site in Toulouse. The first line will be dedicated to production using microbial systems (bacteria and yeast), while the second is designed for the culture of mammalian cells at a scale of 10 l.
German plastics additives manufacturer Baerlocher is adding capacity for its calcium-based PVC stabilizers at Bury, UK. The company said it will expand output by more than 50% in 2022 by installing new mixing and granulation units.
Germany’s Merck has opened its second production facility for viral vectors at Carlsbad, California, a move the company said significantly expands its global CDMO footprint. The new €100 million plant will more than double the company’s existing capacity to support large-scale commercial and industrial manufacturing for viral gene therapy.
US specialty chemicals company Ingevity has announced plans to hike capacity for caprolactone monomer at its facility in Warrington, UK. The increase will be achieved through a series of optimization projects over the next 12 months that will expand Ingevity’s global monomer capacity by more than 20%.
Industrial gases producer Air Products has announced its largest-ever investment in the US, a $4.5 billion clean energy complex in the state of Louisiana’s Ascension Parish. The company will build, own and operate the mammoth facility expected to go on stream in 2026, producing more than 750 million standard cubic feet (22.5 million cubic meters) per day of “blue” hydrogen and blue ammonia.
Czech company Orlen Unipetrol, part of Poland’s refining and petrochemicals group PKN Orlen, has announced plans to expand its steam cracker at Litvinov by adding an eleventh furnace. The project costing about 700 million Czech koruna (about €27 million) will expand ethylene output at the site to 585,000 t/y from 545,000 t/y.
