Vetter expands Development Service with a new location in Austria

With the new Vetter Development Service location in Rankweil, Austria, the pharmaceutical service provider is further expanding its European presence.

Honorary Senator Udo J. Vetter, Chairman of the Advisory Board and member of the owner family (center), along with Vetter executives Peter Sölkner (left) and Thomas Otto (right), give the go-ahead for the new production facility, which is scheduled to be commissioned in 2021.

- CDMO responds to increasing customer demand
- Investment in additional clinical filling capacities in Europe
- Planned commissioning in 2021

The biopharmaceutical development is increasingly focusing on highly specialized active ingredients. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are therefore more frequently relying on competent outsourcing partners to meet the rising demand for fill & finish solutions. Vetter, a globally leading Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), is responding to the worldwide increase in demand by acquiring an additional clinical manufacturing site in Vorarlberg, Austria.

The healthcare landscape is continuously evolving. The global shift towards more complex biological active ingredients and smaller batch sizes means that manufacturing partners like Vetter are playing an increasingly central role in clinical development. "Pharma and biotech companies are increasingly seeking partners who, in addition to comprehensive manufacturing capacities, also offer customized and product-specific support during product development," says Senator h.c. Udo J. Vetter, Chairman of the Supervisory Board and member of the owner family. "With the new site, we are further expanding our European presence. The goal is to establish an independent and flexible site for clinical development modeled after our existing production facility in the USA near Chicago."

The manufacturing site located in Rankweil has been acquired, including a vial filling line and a freeze-drying system for the production of liquid or lyophilized medicines, as well as laboratory equipment and tools for material preparation. Thomas Otto, Managing Director of Vetter, explains: "The additional site increases our capacities for early clinical development in Phase I and Phase II. Over the next few months, we will evaluate and modify the entire facility and adapt it to the high quality and process standards of our aseptic fill & finish services for injection systems. Located just one hour by car from our headquarters in Ravensburg, the site is ideally situated to be successfully integrated into our existing business processes."

The Vetter Development Service Rankweil (VDS-R) is expected to commence operations in the second half of next year.