Ash Stevens Raises the Roof as Company Turns Fifty

Ash Stevens Inc. (ASI), a full service contract pharmaceutical manufacturer, is excited to be nearing the completion of a multi-year, multi-million dollar expansion to its cGMP manufacturing facility in Riverview, Michigan as the company celebrates fifty years in business. The current expansion project will culminate in Q1 2013 with the completion of a new large-scale reactor bay and large-scale isolation bay. Construction on the new large-scale bays began in January of 2012 and in August of this year a section of the facility’s roof was removed allowing a crane to lower three large reactors into place. The new reactor bay houses 2,000, 3,000 and 4,000 liter glass-lined reactors equipped with split butterfly valves and appropriate engineering controls for potent compound charging and handling. The adjacent isolation bay is equipped with a 1.5 m² fixed filter dryer with glovebox technology for contained isolation, drying, and packaging of large scale batches.

“With the completion of the expansion, Ash Stevens will have the capability to meet the service and capacity needs of most projects while still providing close interactive client support and project management to facilitate a successful outsourcing experience. We have come a long way since our beginning as a commercial extension of our academic roots and are very excited to be completing this expansion as we celebrate our fifty year anniversary,” says Dr. Stephen Munk, President and CEO of Ash Stevens.

In addition to the large-scale reactor and isolator bays, Ash Stevens has added many other upgrades to its Riverview manufacturing facility since continuing its expansion in 2006. These upgrades include: a new reactor bay housing two 400L reactors and a 200L hydrogenation reactor; a new physical characterization laboratory including DSC, TGA, XRPD and PSD; a new laboratory with airlocks for handling highly potent compounds; a new state-of-the-art materials storage and handling facility; new Rosenmund filter dryers with glovebox technology; and a new safety and hazard assessment laboratory with RC1 technology.