Philadel­phia-based con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er PCI Phar­ma an­nounced on Tues­day plans to in­vest $50 mil­lion to build a new 200,000-square-foot man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty at its cam­pus in the city of Rock­ford, Illi­nois.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the com­pa­ny, the new fa­cil­i­ty will have over 20 man­u­fac­tur­ing suites and the abil­i­ty to as­sem­ble and pack­age vials, pre-filled sy­ringes and oth­er in­jectable med­i­cines. It will al­so pro­duce med­i­cines de­signed to treat di­a­betes and obe­si­ty as well as man­u­fac­ture drugs for on­col­o­gy and au­toim­mune dis­eases.

PCI’s new fa­cil­i­ty, which is ex­pect­ed to bring in 250 jobs over the next two years, should be up and run­ning in the sum­mer of 2024, with more growth an­tic­i­pat­ed over the next three to five years.

Ac­cord­ing to PCI’s SVP of com­mer­cial pack­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy Gil Valadez in an email to End­points News, the new site will al­so have cold stor­age, la­bel­ing, as­sem­bly and pack­ag­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

“The need for in­jectable drug-de­liv­ery de­vice com­bi­na­tion prod­uct ca­pac­i­ty and ex­per­tise is crit­i­cal, and we are re­spond­ing with a world-class fa­cil­i­ty to ad­dress the fu­ture de­mands of our glob­al clients so they can fo­cus on de­vel­op­ing ther­a­pies to im­prove the lives of pa­tients with se­ri­ous chron­ic con­di­tions,” said PCI Phar­ma Ser­vice CEO Sal­im Haf­far, in a re­lease.

Last year, the CD­MO em­barked on sev­er­al ex­pan­sions across both sides of the At­lantic Ocean. In May, it dropped $100 mil­lion in­to its asep­tic liq­uid fill-fin­ish and ster­ile lyophiliza­tion tech­nol­o­gy at its cam­pus in Bed­ford, NH, which it bought at the end of 2021. That ex­pan­sion will add a 50,000-square-foot fa­cil­i­ty with the abil­i­ty to pump out 400 vials per minute.

In the sum­mer of last year, it al­so de­cid­ed to ex­pand its man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty in the town of Tre­de­gar, Wales, with that ex­pan­sion de­signed to help the com­pa­ny keep pace with the pro­duc­tion of on­col­o­gy ther­a­pies. The ex­pan­sion will al­so in­clude two new fa­cil­i­ties ded­i­cat­ed to man­u­fac­tur­ing and pack­ag­ing sol­id oral-dose tablets and cap­sules.

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

Catalent will be manufacturing a low-cost version of the opioid overdose treatment naloxone as part of a contract with Harm Reduction Therapeutics.

Catalent plans to manufacture the treatment at its facility in Morrisville, NC. No financial details on the deal were disclosed.

Harm Reduction was granted priority review status for the NDA on its spray last year. The company has been working on a naloxone product since 2017. It is anticipating approval in July of this year and a US launch in early 2024.

Last year, South African-based vaccine manufacturer Aspen Pharmacare was facing reports that it had not received a single order for its manufactured Covid-19 shots and that manufacturing lines were sitting idle. But now the vaccine producer is looking to turn things around.

Aspen’s disclosure of its financial results in March unveiled that manufacturing revenue had decreased by 12% to R 603 million ($33.8 million), which Lorraine Hill, Aspen Group’s COO, said is attributable to lower Covid vaccine sales.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is putting down more roots in the Bay Area.

The manufacturer opened the doors to a new cell therapy manufacturing facility next to the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center’s Mission Bay campus and on the university’s campus.

UCSF and Thermo Fisher have had a partnership since 2021, with the new site focusing on manufacturing cell therapeutics for certain cancers, including glioblastoma and multiple myeloma. The new site plans to use Thermo Fisher’s expertise in manufacturing services to help UCSF accelerate the development of cell therapies and eventually get them into the clinic, said Dan Herring, the general manager of cell therapy services at Thermo Fisher, in an interview with Endpoints News.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”