Kyowa Hakko Kirin launches new pharmaceuticals facility

Kyowa Hakko Kirin has announced the completion of construction of a new facility for formulating solid dosage forms in Japan, a process which commenced in September 2011.

The new site, located at the company's existing plant in Ube, was officially opened with a commemorative ceremony and will increase the annual production capacity of the location to 1.4 billion tablets.

Some of the products manufactured at Kyowa Hakko Kirin's Fuji plant will be transferred to the new Ube facility following the launch, with technology transfers to be started at the beginning of 2013.

The company hopes to commence commercial production at the site in 2015, employing state-of-the-art manufacturing engineering technologies and an automated transportation system to achieve maximum productivity.

"Kyowa Hakko Kirin is striving to enhance its production system to maintain stable distribution of high-quality pharmaceuticals to patients," the firm said in a statement.

This comes after the drugmaker announced the establishment of a subsidiary in Thailand in October 2012, as well as outlining plans to set up a manufacturing plant for amino acids in the Asian nation.