Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing opens $60M fill-and-finish facility
A parenteral contract development and manufacturing organization for the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries completed its 20-month, $60 million expansion.
Grand Rapids-based Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing (GRAM) today hosted a private grand opening for its new 61,500-square-foot injectable fill-and-finish facility that is the fifth building in GRAM’s footprint and its third fill-and-finish facility. It is located at 524 Butterworth St. SW.
The expansion triples GRAM’s existing capacity and brings the company’s total footprint to over 100,000 square feet of space.
According to a previous Business Journal report, St. Louis-based CRB, a design-build firm that specializes in constructing pharmaceutical facilities, in October 2018 began work on the expansion, which is only 100 yards from its original campus at 140 Front Ave. SW.
CRB’s integrated team and specialized approach allowed the facility to be built and completed in 20 months, saving months from the standard construction timeline, according to GRAM.
“Our customer-minded team and company culture make us unique, and this new facility — with its cutting-edge equipment and technology — further distinguishes GRAM at the top of the industry,” said Tom Ross, president and CEO of GRAM.
“I am incredibly proud of how the team applied our culture of innovative thinking and hands-on approach to design this state-of-the-art facility.”
Facility Features
- Grade C cleanroom
- Two formulation suites
- $15 million worth of high-speed equipment — including a SKAN isolator and an IMA lyophilizer auto-loader, as well as a high-speed Bausch+Ströbel filling line that will enable GRAM to produce commercial batches of all sizes
- Plenty of room to grow on the building’s second floor
GRAM
Founded in 2010 to acquire the assets of a joint venture between the Van Andel Institute and Grand Valley State University, Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing (GRAM) provides sterile parenteral development, manufacturing, testing and regulatory filing support for the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries.
Ross was one of GRAM’s original investors in 2010 and joined the company as president and CEO in 2013.
Parenteral refers to medicinal solutions administered somewhere in the body other than the mouth or alimentary canal, including injections or infusions that are intravenous (into a vein), subcutaneous (under the skin) or intramuscular (into a muscle).
GRAM’s aseptic manufacturing capabilities include sterile liquid and lyophilized (freeze dried) vial filling and finishing; terminal sterilization of vials; controlled substances handling and production; labeling and packaging; and storage and distribution.
The company has nearly 200 employees — 40-50 of which have been hired as a result of this expansion — and is currently hiring. Job seekers can apply at grandriverasepticmfg.com/careers.
Posted By: Grand Rapids Business Journal on June 30, 2020. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
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