Avara’s acquisitions to date have been from respected, global brands. Aside from capabilities, what do these facilities offer to your customers?
Every Avara location has a long, proven history in the industry and adds to our growing state-of-the-art capabilities, but we are especially proud of the professional experience offered by the personnel at every facility. Avara was founded and is run by an experienced team of industry veterans who understand the working relationship between sponsor and CDMO from both perspectives. Similarly, we understand that it’s important for industry experience to exist at every level of the organization.
Avara’s capabilities are extensive and will continue to grow into 2017, but the Avara team is what ultimately allows us to differentiate from other CDMOs. Though our facilities have proven capable of delivering the highest quality pharmaceuticals — including blockbuster products — that are compliant with regulatory requirements in every major market global market, our people make this possible. With every acquisition, we strive to maintain all positions in a given facility to ensure that we have the most experienced teams possible at every location. For Avara’s customers, this translates to seamless production and offers additional confidence in Avara’s ability to deliver the highest quality products on time, in full and at a fair price.
How will Avara’s most recent acquisitions - in Avlon, Avonmouth, England and Norman, Oklahoma - help further the company’s growth?
At Avara, we remain committed to growing our global network of world-class facilities. Our most recently acquired locations, like those last year in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and Shannon, Ireland, have proven commercial records and will increase our flexibility, allowing us to respond with greater agility to the needs of our global customers. The Avlon manufacturing facility and Norman manufacturing and packaging facilities also add a combine 54 years of experience and help expand our global reach and overall capacity.
The global CDMO market remains incredibly competitive and these acquisitions allow us to strengthen our offerings. In addition to capability, the Avlon facility also complements our API operations in Shannon, and the Norman location adds considerable analytical capabilities while also complementing both the packaging and manufacturing capabilities of our site in Arecibo, a former Merck location that just celebrated its first year with Avara. With expanded capacity and new or enhanced capabilities, we can continue to offer a fantastic customer experience in the CDMO market by remaining highly responsive and committed to delivering as promised. We also understand the value of offering a full suite of services and the packaging and warehousing facilities at our Norman location offer additional supply chain options to our customers.
What are Avara’s current capabilities and how do you see those expanding in the future?
We remain focused on key regions around the world and on expanding our current capabilities, which include API development and manufacturing, solid dose drug product manufacturing and fill-finish operations. With FDA- and cGMP compliant operations and our kilo-capable API facility specifically focused on maximizing production while minimizing associated issues, we strive to serve customers at various stages of production. The industry continues to see biopharmaceuticals grow in complexity and significance around the world, and we plan to expand our development and manufacturing expertise in this area to support global growth. As always, the customer experience remains central and we believe that these additional capabilities will help Avara better serve its global customers.
Tim Tyson, Chairman and CEO of Avara Pharmaceutical Services, was recently Chairman and previously CEO of Aptuit. Prior to that he was President and CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals and served as President of GlaxoSmithKline Global Manufacturing & Supply, where he had responsibility for over 100 manufacturing sites and outsourced manufacturing worldwide. Mr. Tyson holds a Bachelors degree in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at WestPoint and MBA and MPA degrees from Jacksonville State University (USA).