Pharmascience Looks To Be Injectables Force With CAD120m Manufacturing Investment

Canada’s PharmaScience has unveiled plans to triple its injectable manufacturing capacity, with a CAD120m ($87.1m) government-and-province-supported investment into the firm’s key manufacturing facility in Candiac, Montreal, Québec.

Slated to come online in 2026, the new facility is set to comprise approximately 26,000 sq ft of new manufacturing space and equipment, alongside a retrofit of approximately 7,500 sq to Pharmascience’s existing manufacturing facilities.

Approved by Health Canada, the European Medicines Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration, the Candiac site is where Pharmascience produces “our more complex products, like high potency oral solid drugs. We also do also prefilled syringes, vials and our lyophilized business as well,” Pharmascience CEO Martin Arès noted to Generics Bulletin earlier this year during an exclusive interview.

Listing the upsides to the project, Pharmascience named improving Canada’s domestic biomanufacturing capabilities and ability, increasing manufacturing efficiency to respond more swiftly to shortages, and “implanting Pharmascience as the Canadian leader in specialized, cytotoxic and high-potency injectable pharmaceutical manufacturing.”

Pharmascience emphasized the need to invest in Canadian manufacturing and protect the local pharmaceutical supply chain, with only “12% of Canada’s drug supply produced domestically.”

More than CAD50m of the investment will come from public/external funds, including CAD29.8m million from the Government of Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund and a further CAD24.75m from the Government of Québec through Investissement Québec.

While also benefitting patients both inside and outside of Canada with more efficient manufacturing, the investment will create 50 new high-skilled advanced manufacturing jobs, as well as supporting an additional 300 jobs at the site.

Meanwhile, the project will allow Pharmascience – the largest Canadian-owned pharmaceutical company – to invest approximately CAD40-50m every year in R&D in Canada.

“This major expansion project is the continuation of Pharmascience’s vision to be the Canadian leader in biomanufacturing of both generic and innovative products,” commented Pharmascience’s chairman, David Goodman.

“We are proud to invest in the continued growth of Pharmascience, building on our 40 years of experience in the sector, to bring affordable, high-quality medicines to patients in Canada and around the world.”

Ahead of the announcement, Arès had revealed to Generics Bulletin that the Canadiac site “is where we’re investing I would say quite a lot. So we’re tripling our capacity, investing more than CAD150m to expand the capacity and expand our capabilities to support our partners from around the world.”

“We have a great R&D team who are specialized in those complex products, with peptides and hard to make molecules. I would say also we are really specialized in oncology and central nervous system drugs,” Arès had said.

“So if you look at the pipeline, this company can be extremely proud with the accomplishment. And if you look at the next five years, this pipeline will really bring us to higher levels, definitely. 

Pharmascience’s CEO now added that the project was evidence of the company’s determination to “support local manufacturing, and that we believe in the need to invest in Québec and in Canada.”

“We are proud to announce this major project that will firmly cement our role as leaders in Canadian pharmaceutical manufacturing,” commented Montreal-native Arès.

“This project proves that, with the support of governments, we can support local manufacturing and our domestic capacity to secure pharmaceutical supply chain security as well as the strength of our healthcare system.”

Christian Dubé, Canada’s Minister of Health, welcomed an initiative to “promote self-sufficiency in terms of supply and support innovation in the health field to improve our network’s performance.”

“By supporting the Pharmascience project, we are leveraging local expertise to better meet the needs of Quebecers.”