Aptar Pharma, part of AptarGroup, Inc., announced the next phase of its global capacity expansion plan in North America, at its Aptar Congers, New York site. This investment will help Aptar meet the growing prescription and consumer healthcare customer demand for proprietary drug delivery systems in North America.
Manufacturing began at Aptar Congers in 2002 with a cleanroom and the production of Aptar Pharma’s VP3 pumps, and today the site manufactures a wide range of proprietary drug delivery products for nasal and injectable delivery routes. Manufacturing capabilities at the Congers facility will be further expanded to offer even more innovative product solutions and increased production capacity to Aptar Pharma customers in North America.
Expanded production for proprietary drug delivery systems including the Unidose (UDS) Nasal Delivery Platform
To support increasing patient demand for systemic nasal delivery, Aptar Pharma is significantly expanding the manufacturing capacity of its proprietary Unidose (UDS) Nasal Spray Systems via the addition of molds and assembly lines in cleanroom manufacturing settings, with the additional capacity planned to come online in Q4 2024.
Initiating Bag-on-Valve (BOV) Assembly in the US
To meet increased customer demand in the region for nasal saline solutions, Aptar Pharma is installing an assembly line at the Aptar Congers facility to further expand manufacturing of its bag-on-vale (BOV) technology. This new environmentally controlled good manufacturing practice (GMP) production area is planned to be fully operational by early 2025.
Expanding Child-Resistant Senior-Friendly (CRSF) Solution production
As demand continues to grow in North America for child-resistant packaging for nasal decongestant sprays, Aptar Pharma’s plans include a cleanroom extension at the Aptar Congers site for its Child-Resistant Senior-Friendly (CRSF) closure solutions to increase manufacturing capacity to supply customers locally.
Aptar Pharma Global Expansion Plan
The new capacity will be housed in the building extension at the existing Aptar Congers site and is planned to be completed by the end of 2024, with the goal to significantly boost capacity across several Aptar Pharma product lines. The building extension adds an additional 28,500 sq. ft. of manufacturing footprint to enhance warehousing, cleanroom and manufacturing capabilities at the site and was previously announced as part of the Pharma segment’s injectable capacity expansion in 2020.
Aptar Pharma’s expansion in North America is part of the company’s overall global expansion plan, which includes a robust injectables expansion program in France, and new state-of-the art manufacturing facilities in Suzhou, China and Mumbai, India. This newly expanded Congers facility is the company’s direct response to continuing customer demand in the region, and supports Aptar’s “local for local” strategy.
As part of the previously announced global injectables expansion program, a portion of the expanded facility has been dedicated to Aptar Pharma’s ETFE PremiumCoat® film-coated stoppers manufacturing, including on-site molding and trimming, which will be performed in a new ISO-7 cleanroom, while finishing and automated vision inspection will continue to be performed in an ISO-5 cleanroom. PremiumCoat® production at Aptar Congers, on track to be ready for commercialization in early 2025, is covered by the same Drug Master File (DMF) as the Aptar Granville and Aptar Brécey manufacturing sites in France.
“Our Aptar Pharma business in North America has shown robust growth in recent years, with increasing customer demand across all product lines,” commented Gael Touya, President, Aptar Pharma. “This expansion is a key step in the next phase of our global expansion program, designed to continue to meet the growing needs of our customers in the region, which will ultimately benefit patients.”
Added Isabelle Menard, Vice President & General Manager, Aptar Pharma North America, “The expansion of our Congers facility provides a larger state-of-the-art manufacturing space, not only for the expansion of our well-established operations, but also to fuel further localization to support the needs of our U.S. customers.”