AstraZeneca doubles Lokelma output with $445m Texas plant enlargement

AstraZeneca has unveiled a newly expanded manufacturing facility in Texas to the tune of $445m, because the drugmaker goals to satisfy growing demand for hyperkalaemia therapy Lokelma (sodium zirconium cyclosilicate).

The close to half a billion-dollar enlargement at AstraZeneca’s manufacturing facility in Coppell, Texas, provides a brand new 9,000ft² constructing, which can home two manufacturing traces. The funding can even fund upgrades for drug substance and drug product laboratory testing, together with further area for warehousing and administration. General, AstraZeneca says the enlargement will double the manufacturing of Lokelma.

Lokelma is an oral suspension therapy that lowers potassium ranges within the blood. The drug was US Meals and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved in 2018, three years after being acquired by AstraZeneca in a takeover of ZS Pharma for $2.7bn.

Lokelma generated $542m in 2024, a rise of 32% from 2023. Evaluation by GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Centre forecasts annual international gross sales to achieve $938m by 2031.

GlobalData is the dad or mum firm of Pharmaceutical Expertise.

AstraZeneca’s Texas facility, which employs greater than 250 folks, is the only provider of Lokelma to greater than 50 nations, together with the US.

“Our manufacturing facility in Coppell serves as each a vital pillar in international healthcare and has performed an vital function in supporting the native workforce over the previous 10 years. The enlargement underscores our dedication to sufferers and assist for Texas’ long-term imaginative and prescient for scientific progress and innovation,” mentioned Jim Fox, AstraZeneca’s senior vice chairman of Americas Provide Operations.

The $445m funding into Coppell comes per week after AstraZeneca commenced development on its new $4.5bn lively pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facility in Virginia. The work in each Coppell and Virginia is a part of a wider $50bn outlay by the corporate to bolster manufacturing capabilities within the US by 2030.

Lowering reliance on medication manufactured abroad has been a key ambition of the Trump administration. In Could, Trump signed an government order that can streamline the trail for pharma firms to construct new US drug manufacturing manufacturing websites and enhance inspection occasions for US services. The FDA then launched a scheme that will make it simpler for brand new services to be authorised in August 2025.

AstraZeneca is considered one of many non-US massive pharma firms to show its consideration to the US. Swiss massive pharma Roche outlaid $50bn value of funding within the US, which can generate greater than 1,000 jobs in new and expanded services. British drugmaker GSK mentioned it would make investments $30bn within the US over the subsequent 5 years.

“AstraZeneca doubles Lokelma output with $445m Texas plant enlargement” was initially created and printed by Pharmaceutical Expertise, a GlobalData owned model.

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