Since 2021, pharmaceutical company Vertex has been launching new production sites, and has also opened new quality service analytical laboratories. The company estimates total investments in the development of the pharmaceutical complex in 2021 and 2022 at about one billion rubles. More than half of this amount was paid for equipment, mainly production equipment, which cost about 385 million rubles. This was reported in the company’s press service.
The total amount of investments in the pharmaceutical complex at the end of 2021 approached 8.5 billion rubles (for the entire period of the project since 2012). It includes, among other things, the design of the facility and its construction in three stages, premises equipment for various purposes, production launch and modernization.
Vertex continues to develop its innovative production complex in St. Petersburg. The company received permission to commission the facility with a total area of 56,500 square meters at the end of 2019; it was then that the third phase was added.
“We built the pharmaceutical complex with room to grow, taking into account the company’s development, the growth of the range and the volume of production. The main part of the first (since 2015) and second stages are involved, but there is still potential for further expansion of divisions depending on their needs,” said Georgiy Pobeliansky, CEO of Vertex Pharmaceutical Company.
The total area of new premises of various types added in 2021 and 2022 is about 2,650 square meters. Some of the new divisions are already in operation. The launch of the others is planned for this year. From 2021 to 2022, three production sites, a pilot development workshop and the quality services and quality management buildings were constructed, including analytical laboratories of the quality control department.
In the autumn of 2021, the company began industrial production of hormonal drugs at the new site, the production range including three items (two drug names). According to the plans, at the first stage, the volume of production of the site will be over 320,000 packages of medicines per year. Its maximum design capacity is up to 900,000 packages per year. In the first six months of 2022, it is planned to start test series piloting, and then industrial production of the drug in two dosage forms at the new section of effervescent tablets. It is for the first time that the company will produce the drug in such a dosage form. The total area of the two sites is over 350 square meters and includes two production lines for generic drugs, both branded ones and those released with their international nonproprietary name (INN).
In November last year, Vertex deployed a new area of about 1100 square meters on the third floor of the building of the third phase of the pharmaceutical complex. An area of about 500 square meters is now occupied by the quality management service divisions, including an office with 49 workplaces, which were moved from the building of the first phase. The rest of the building houses the new premises of the analytical laboratory of the quality control department, as well as technical and auxiliary premises. New laboratory facilities are needed mainly for the implementation of the company’s transition to the operations in compliance with the EEU rules. By the end of 2025, pharmaceutical manufacturers of the EAEU member states need to bring dossiers of drugs that have been registered according to national rules into compliance with the requirements of the Union.
