Cambrex starts $5 million expansion of lab facilities at Swedish site

Manufacturer of small molecule innovator and generic active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), Cambrex, has started a $5 million expansion of laboratory facilities at its Karlskoga site in Sweden.

This expansion will increase the company’s capability and capacity for process development and scale up, handling of potent substances, crystallisation studies and solid-phase characterisation.

“We have a rich history in chemistry at our Karlskoga site, dating back 120 years to Alfred Nobel himself in 1896,” commented Bjarne Sandberg, managing director, Cambrex Karlskoga. “The new laboratory expansion will enhance our ability to provide global customers with scientific and chemical excellence.”

The expansion will create space for a new technical laboratory with walk-in hoods for large scale laboratory syntheses (up to 10 litres), enabling engineers and chemists to undertake tech transfer studies. Additionally, the investment will allow for the handling of potent substances at a large laboratory scale, high pressure reactions and parallel synthesis for API route scouting and development.

Furthermore, the expansion will feature two analytical development and quality control laboratories and additional office space for 12 additional scientists and chemists, increasing the headcount of the site to 60 in total.

Last year (2017) the company upgraded its continuous flow capabilities in Karlskoga with a dedicated commercial-scale unit, capable of producing multiple metric tons of high purity API intermediates per annum. To complement these capabilities, the company also completed the installation of multiple continuous flow reactor platforms at its process development facility in High Point, North Carolina.