KALAMAZOO COUNTY, Mich. — Pfizer broke ground on Wednesday on what they say will be the world's most state-of-the-art pharmaceutical facility.
The ceremony happened at the Portage facility.
SEE MORE: Pfizer breaks ground on new pharmaceutical production facility
"This investment solidifies Pfizer’s focus and our purpose, which is breakthroughs that change patients' lives," said Mike McDermott, the president of Pfizer Global Supply.
It has been years in the making, as Pfizer finally broke ground on the new sterile injectable pharmaceutical production facility in Portage.
The multi-story facility will be 420,000 square feet and will be known as 'Modular Aseptic Processing' or MAP.
"It is really modernizing one of our manufacturing processes because we are bringing advanced capability for vile filing or aseptic filling of sterile injectable products as well as the way we lyophilize or freeze dry those products. It is all done without manual intervention," said Chaz Calitri, Pfizer's vice president of operations in Global Sterile Injectables.
The process ultimately makes it quicker and safer to get products to patients who need it.
"We’ll be manufacturing our sterile injectable portfolio projects, a number of them. Initially it will be one project called Dynastat where we make about 30 million doses a year of that serving many different countries for medication that is prescribed for pain post operations," said Calitri.
The facility will cost around $450 million and is expected to create 450 jobs.
"Ultimately we see this as an opportunity to grow our U.S. manufacturing base and continue to hire colleagues for high-quality manufacturing jobs," said McDermott.
"This facility has been a couple years in the making, right? It has gone through its series of iterations. We are really excited because it is the future. It is the way manufacturing is going to be done for sterile injectables, as I mentioned, highly digital, highly robotic, and that is where we need to be with all of our lines," said McDermott.
Pfizer expects construction to finish by 2023 and hopes to become fully operational by 2025.
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