Aphena’s $21M Cookeville Expansion Nears Completion

Aphena Pharma Solutions’ ongoing $21 million expansion of its Solid Dose Division in Cookeville, TN, is on schedule with a planned completion date of April 1.

The expansion, announced in September 2020, includes the acquisition of a 500,000-sq.-ft. property purpose-built for FDA manufacturing and packaging operations and represents Aphena’s expansion into biologics, cold chain storage and third-party logistics distribution.

The company’s bottle packaging capacity has been expanded with the installation of 10 high-speed bottling lines to start, for solid-based products including tablets, capsules, caplets, soft gels and gel caps. Aphena plans to install 30 more high-speed lines in the new facility, bringing monthly capacity to over 80 million bottles.

Aphena’s bottling services include purchasing all of the primary and secondary packaging materials, including pharmaceutical bottle labeling with serialization support. Various configurations and sizes are available, including square bottles, and Aphena has the ability to run batches from 1,000 to 10 million bottles under cGMP quality systems.

“This new facility and bottling lines set the foundation for Aphena’s solid dose packaging future, allowing us to maintain a 50% capacity level for any new projects or surge capacity requirements so that we can continue to stay ahead of our current and future customers’ needs,” said Eric Allen, Aphena’s EVP of Sales and Marketing.