NPIL Pharma Invests in Formulation Services

InformexUSA, San Francisco (Feb. 14)-NPIL Pharma (Mumbai, India, www.npilpharma.com) unveiled a $100-million investment program in formulation development and manufacturing services. NPIL Pharma is a custom manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), intermediates, and formulation services. Michael Fernandes, executive director of NPIL Pharma’s custom manufacturing business, discussed the company’s strategy at a press briefing here at InformexUSA.

NPIL Pharma has invested roughly $50 million over the past three years as part of its early-phase (development) and late-phase (manufacturing) formulation services in the United Kingdom and India, and plans a similar investment over 2007–2009. The investment includes a new sterile supplies pilot plant, which is scheduled to come on stream in Mumbai, India in the fourth quarter of 2007.

The company’s focus on formulation services and final-dosage forms follows the addition of capabilities in this area from NPIL’s acquisition of Pfizer, Inc.’s (New York, NY, www.pfizer.com) API and formulation facility at Morpeth, United Kingdom last June.

NPIL Pharma offers preformulation, dosage-formulation development, and commercial-scale formulation manufacturing at three sites: Mumbai and Pithampur, India, and Morpeth.

As a result of the Morpeth acquisition, NPIL Pharma now has annualized aggregate drug-formulation capacity of 3 billion tablets, 500 million low RH (< 8%) tablets, 270 million hard-gelatin capsules, 180 million ophthalmic liquids, 48 million glass vials, and 30 million ampules.

The company will launch its integrated formulation capabilities to pharmaceutical customers in Europe and North America beginning in the second quarter 2007.