Aesica Pharmaceuticals has relocated its development and clinical manufacturing services from Nottingham to Queenborough in the UK. As a consequence, Aesica now intends to provide full manufacturing and development services at its Queenborough site with the addition of a new development center. From Queenborough, the company now provides API production, formulation development, clinical manfacture through to commercial scale product manufacturing.

The new development center will provide development of solid and liquid dosage forms, including the ability to manufacture clinical drug product for Phase I to Phase III studies. As the new center sits on a commercial site, the technical transfer from development to commercial will be a smooth transition for the customer, according to the company. The development center will be able to handle potent and controlled drugs, which mirror the commercial offering from Queenborough.

Aesica will also still offer semi-solid development. In addition, inhalation services will continue apace with access to technology and knowhow, including metered dose inhalers (MDI), dry powder inhalers being provided by Bespak within the Consort Medical Group.

The new development center at Queenborough has more than twice the capacity of the existing one in Nottingham and as a result provides significant scope for further business expansion.

“The move to establish this development center at Queenborough, with such a fully aligned and comprehensive set of services, forms part of our longer term strategy to meet the future needs of the market and represents a logical evolution for our company,” said Ian Muir, managing director, Aesica Pharmaceuticals. “Indeed, it will serve to further enhance our provision of high quality services to our customers in both formulation and drug device development.

Mr. Muir said the tech transfer component to this is especially important as it is central to ensuring the efficient and seamless transfer of a product from clinical development into the commercial manufacturing arena.

“We now have a center of excellence for API manufacturing, early to late stage clinical development right the way through to commercial scale production,” said Mr. Muir. “This means that we offer the market a complete end-to-end service from a single development location—catering for the full manufacturing and development requirements of a wide range of customers, including of course, today’s virtual pharmaceutical companies.”