US backs domestic drug production

Abstract

As a new administration gets to work in Washington, DC, projects launched by the previous administration to secure domestic pharmaceutical production are moving ahead. On Jan. 15, the US awarded a $69.3 million contract to Continuus Pharmaceuticals to build a facility in Woburn, Massachusetts, that will produce three medicines that are currently imported. A week later, Civica Rx said it will use government funding to build a $124.5 million sterile injectable-drug facility in Petersburg, Virginia. The grant to Continuus is from the US Department of Defense in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services. It will fund construction of what the firm says will be the first facility to employ continuous manufacturing technology in the end-to-end production of small-molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and finished drugs. Continuus, which grew out of a partnership between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Novartis, is among the companies pioneering continuous technologies