Fareva Expands Sterile Production Capabilities

Earlier this year, on July 9, 2020, an agreement was reached with the Pierre-Fabre group for Fareva acquiring two pharmaceutical sterile manufacturing sites in France that the company expects to begin operation by the end of the year.

The Idron site has 200 employees and is dedicated to the manufacture of sterile injectable forms (pre-filled syringes, lyophilized and liquid filled vials). The factory has 10 commercial lines and a pilot plant that will be operating end of 2021. The core business of the site is to handle highly potent and biologics entities.

The Saint Julien-en-Genevois site is manufacturing monoclonal antibodies (MABs) with state-of-the-art single use bioreactor technology. On top of clinical trials lots manufacturing, the site allows the purification and the coupling of monoclonal antibodies with high potent actives (up to OEB 6).

Two additional acquisition of sterile sites are under finalization

Fareva has also entered into exclusive negotiations with Merck & Co for the acquisition of the Mirabel site in France. This site will broaden Fareva’s technology offering with its antibiotic injectable workshop. Additionally, it will allow to ensure fill and finish activities for ophthalmic products (BFS single doses) and freeze-dried products in vials. Those production capabilities are already available at the Fareva sites, Valdepharm, Fareva Amboise and Excelvision. It will provide a competitive advantage for high value therapeutic medicines: Fareva could offer two manufacturing locations, allowing Fareva’s customers to register in their market authorization dossier an additional manufacturer. This will mitigate the supply chain disruption risk for those critical drugs, which is expected by the authorities.

In addition, Fareva has just entered into exclusive negotiations with Novartis for the acquisition of the Unterach site, located in Austria. They are expert in high potent prefilled syringes, ampoules and lyophilized vials.

A broader sterile technology offering

These new acquisitions increase Fareva’s technology portfolio, including into the high-potent and biologic market segments. These two categories represent the majority of the new drugs applications launched in the market over the last 5 years.

"We continue to invest significantly in the areas of sterile and oncology manufacturing, with the aim to increase our technology offering, from providing services from API to finished dosage forms,” said Bernard Fraisse, founder and president, Fareva Group. In this business, customers are seeking long-term relationships, and we will support this by adding to our existing network.”

Site acquisitions

Idron
• 200 employees
• Approved by Korea, Europe, US and Japan
• Sterile Liquids, PFS  and freeze-dried vials
• High potent, biologic and conventional injectables

St-Julien-en-Genevois
• >30 employees
• Approved by Europe
• Monoclonal antibodies and conjugated monoclonal antibodies with high potent actives
• Single use bioreactors

Mirabel (to be finalized)
• 350 employees
• Approved by Europe and US
• Antibiotic injectables
• Sterile Liquids and freeze-dried vials
• Ophthalmic single dose
• Ability to expand

Unterach (to be finalized)
• 500 employees
• Approved by Europe and USA
• High potent prefilled syringes
• Ampoules
• Sterile liquids and freeze-dried vials