Chemical Week
October 20, 2008
High-Potency API Expansion Plans Under Way as Market Soars
Deepti Ramesh in Frankfurt
Several manufacturers are planning to expand operations amid healthy growth in the
high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredient (HPAPI) market, CW has learned.
However, increasing raw material costs and the need for tougher standards for pharma
ingredients, especially for products imported from Asia, are major issues, the
manufacturers told CW at the CPhI pharma ingredient exposition, held in Frankfurt
earlier this month.
Companies that told CW of HPAPI expansions include Cambrex and Aesica
Pharmaceuticals (Newcastle, U.K.). “The high-potency API market is growing at least
twice as much as the pharmaceutical outsourcing market,” says Steven Klosk, president
and CEO of Cambrex. “Cambrex currently manufactures HPAPIs only in Iowa, but we
are considering investing in Europe,” Klosk says. “Globally, there are only up to seven
significant HPAPI players, and so Cambrex would like to tap more into the HPAPI
market.”
Aesica says it will expand HPAPI capacity at its Queenborough, U.K. plant during the
next year. “The Queenborough plant is currently running at full capacity, and we are
looking to double the capacity of the plant in the next 12 months,” says Robert Hardy,
CEO of Aesica. “The demand for HPAPIs is increasing especially from large U.K. and
U.S. pharma companies,” Hardy says.
Carbogen Amcis (Bubendorf, Switzerland), a subsidiary of Dishman Pharmaceuticals &
Chemicals (Ahmedabad, India), announced plans last April to set up one of the largest
facilities for HPAPIs worldwide at Bavla, India. The plant will cater to cytotoxic and non-
cytotoxic highly active substances (CW, April 14/21, p. 33).
Carbogen Amcis says that more than 20% of its revenues are currently generated from
its HPAPI business, and that the new facility will help its HPAPI business to generate
more than 35% of revenues during the next two years.
“The HPAPI facility at Bavla will involve a