Astellas announces plant transfer

Astellas Pharma has announced the sale and transfer of a plant owned by its Astellas Pharma Manufacturing subsidiary to APP Pharmaceuticals.

The company has sold the Grand Island plant in New York this week as part of its strategic plans to increase efficiency.

In order to guarantee no interruption is made to the supply of pharmaceuticals from the plant, Astellas has agreed to lease the plant from APP to continue its manufacture of Protopic (tacrolimus ointment).

It will continue to make this atopic dermatitis treatment at the site until spring 2009, at which point the lease will terminate and the company will manufacture the compound at its Toyama plant in Japan.

Furthermore, APP has agreed to offer employment to most of the staff already at the Grand Island plant.

Hitoshi Ohta, senior corporate executive and vice-president of technology at Astellas, said: “Asteallas has previously declared in its mid-term five-year management plan ending FY2010 that the number of production sites will be reduced to around ten by FY2010 to achieve an optimal production system.”

He added that the plant transfer is one of the key steps of this plan.

Last month, Astellas Pharma published its annual report for the 2007 fiscal year, reporting net sales of 972.6 billion yen (4.87 billion pounds) on a consolidated basis for the period.