Novartis Investing Big in Austrian Generics Plant

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Novartis is to expand its Kundl antibiotics facility following a deal with the Austrian government that will see an investment of 150 million euro ($176 million).

The company will jointly invest the money over the next five years to "strengthen the long-term competitiveness" of its integrated antibiotic manufacturing operations at Kundl, developing and introducing innovative manufacturing technology for both active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and finished dosage forms (FDFs). Kundl, which is run by Novartis' generics business Sandoz, is described as the last remaining integrated production chain for antibiotics in the western world. The company said that the investment will ensure that essential antibiotics will be available in Austria and other European nations.

"This plan is a great example of government and the private sector working closely together to protect the long-term interests of patients in Europe and beyond," commented Sandoz Chief Executive Officer Richard Saynor. "Antibiotics are the backbone of modern medicine and our Kundl facility in Austria is the hub and centre of the last remaining integrated production chain for antibiotics in the western world. This joint investment will help to keep it that way."

The Austrian federal government will contribute or coordinate public funding totalling approximately 50 million euro ($58 million) million toward the total investment, as part of its efforts to increase European-based production of essential medicines. Sandoz produces enough penicillin products at Kundl to potentially meet all current Europe-wide demand while the site is also the focal point of its European antibiotics manufacturing network. Sandoz, which is headquartered in Holzkirchen, Germany, is the ranked as the leading global supplier of generic antibiotics.

The government funding will first support new process technology to produce API for penicillin products at Kundl. Sandoz will commit to related penicillin API production in Europe for the next 10 years, "despite fierce global price competition, particularly from China," the company stated.

The project is a boost of Europe's antibiotics production sector. In related news, Novartis and other major pharmaceutical companies in the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) raised nearly $1 billion to support clinical research into new antibiotics, in a bid to tackle growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The AMR Action Fund was created to bring two to four new antibiotics to patients by 2030--treatments which it said are "urgently needed to address the rapid rise of antibiotic resistance, which is a part of the broader issue of antimicrobial resistance". The fund is the result of a collaboration of IFPMA with the European Investment Bank (EIB), Wellcome Trust and the World Health Organization (WHO).

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