Rhodia invests $29m in UK pharma production

27 March 2000 00:00  [Source: ICB]

Rhodia is set to invest E30m ($29m) to enhance production at its Holmes Chapel, UK, site. The company will also build pilot scale facilities at its R&D centre in Lyon, France.

To develop the synthesis of advanced intermediates and active molecules for the pharmaceutical industry, Rhodia will expand capacity and introduce new technologies to develop advanced molecules based on a series of complex reactions to its Holmes Chapel site. The facilities will be onstream early 2001. The group will begin work on its French R&D centre in April. Once completed, the facility will supply its partners in the pharmaceutical industry with pre-clinical samples.

Under a parallel but separate investment programme, Rhodia will begin producing pharmaceutical ingredients at its upgraded production site in Dagenham, UK. Manufacturing is set to start during this quarter. Output from the plant will be primarily used in anti-cholesterol and veterinary treatments.

To strengthen its life-science position, Rhodia also said that it would increase its expenditure in R&D by 30% in areas such as chiral chemistry, enzymatic catalysis, carbanions and organo-metallic chemistry.

This year's investment of E30m follows on from a similar investment last year which helped the company develop its 'fine nitration' facilities at Mulhouse, France, and invest in its range of anaesthetics produced at Avonmouth, UK.

Rhodia's deputy president Jean-Claude Bavard said that the company was aiming to provide a global offering for all its partners in the pharmaceutical industry.

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