New facilities for Apotex in $627M expansion

Toronto, ON – Pharmaceutical manufacturer Apotex has officially opened expanded facilities at four of its Toronto-area locations. The company says the expansion project cost $627 million and is creating 1,500 technical, scientific and engineering jobs.

With the addition of the new manufacturing capabilities, which represent more than one million square feet of R&D and production space, the company will have the capacity to produce 20 billion tablets and capsules a year.

The investment includes an expanded R&D and automated production operation in Etobicoke, which will manufacture solid-dosage products primarily for the US market. Two facilities in North York will include an expanded antibiotics production operation and a new special products facility which will manufacture products, such as blood thinners, that require special environmental controls. The fourth facility in Richmond Hill is an enlarged space for the purpose of R&D and manufacturing of injectables, ophthalmics and aerosols.

The company says it spent $191 million on R&D in 2004, which represented 20% of sales, placing it in the top 15 R&D companies in Canada. Company president and COO Jack Kay says the company plans to spend more than $1 billion on R&D over the next 10 years. It currently employs 6,000 staff worldwide, including 2,100 scientific staff with 110 possessing PhDs.