Aspen Pharmacare : opens anaesthetic building as part of €100 million investment at its French-based site

Johannesburg - JSE Limited listed Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited (APN), a global multinational specialty pharmaceutical company, has expanded its specialist sterile production site at Notre Dame de Bondeville in France to augment the Group's global manufacturing facilities.

Stephen Saad, Aspen Group Chief Executive said, 'The new state-of-the-art facility for anaesthetics, together with the new high-speed pre-filled syringe filling and automatic visual inspection lines for thrombosis products, comprise a substantial part of the €100 million investment. The investment in infrastructure at our Notre Dame de Bondeville site will create additional capacity including 80 million individual units of blow fill seal anaesthetics and 180 million pre-filled syringes annually with commercial production expected to begin in 2020. Anaesthetics and thrombosis are two of the Group's therapeutic focus categories and this investment will support supply sustainability as well as eliminate associated stock constraints being experienced.'

To date more than €160 million has been invested at the Notre Dame de Bondeville site and once all the investments are fully operational the site will yield a total capacity of approximately 450 million individual units per year.

Anaesthetic products currently manufactured in Sweden and Australia by third party or contract manufacturers will be transferred to Notre Dame de Bondeville and this may generate recruitment opportunities for up to 100 additional employees.