Vetter to Construct New Filling Lines to Expand Capacity

Vetter, a leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), is investing more than $100 million across its production sites in Germany and the United States. Expanding and upgrading its facilities enable Vetter to meet increasing demand from its pharmaceutical and biotech customers for filling capacity, as well as keep pace with evolving regulatory requirements.

A growing number in clinical and commercial projects prompted Vetter to further expand its filling capacity. Two new state-of-the-art filling lines are currently being designed for Vetter's Ravensburg South facility. The new lines will fill liquid cartridges and vials, respectively and join the production site’s current lines, one of which is a syringe line that was launched this spring. At Vetter’s U.S. clinical manufacturing facility in Chicago, a third filling line for pre-filled syringes is nearing completion. Expected to be operational in 2014, the new clinical line will have a maximum batch size of 30,000.

To enhance efficiency in up-and downstream processes but also to accommodate the additional capacity, Vetter is expanding its storage volume for cold- and room-temperature products as well as frozen products. In addition two new thawing rooms in class 100,000 environment and two more lyophilizers to add to the currently 9 in operation, will be installed. To stay ahead of regulatory requirements, single-use isolator technology is being expanded, and implemented at Vetter production facilities to lower risk of product cross-contamination with high-potent compounds, such as hormones and cancer therapeutics.

Said Thomas Otto, Vetter managing director, “At Vetter, we continually invest in meeting the needs of our customers.” He continued, “With these initiatives, we not only satisfy their demand for increased capacity, but continue to provide the kind of industry-leading facilities and high quality standards to be a reliable and efficient partner for our customers.”