New Investments By Chiron Vaccines At Rosia
Siena (ots) - Chiron Vaccines, a Business Unit of California-based Chiron Corporation, has announced that it has allocated 21 million euro for the expansion of secondary manufacturing facilities at its Rosia site, Italy. The news follows the 29 million euro investment announced last September for the construction of fermentation and purification facilities for glyco-conjugated bacterial vaccine production and related infrastructure, also at its manufacturing site in Rosia.
"The new project will allow us to be more effective in the production of vaccines, thanks both to the construction of a new modular sterile manufacturing facility for the formulation, filling and inspection of sterile dosage forms and to the retrofit of the existing manufacturing facility. Moreover, the reorganisation of existing raw materials and finished goods warehouses, in order to increase the amount of available storage space and improve the flow of materials, will enable a more efficient organisation of logistics" - notes Dario Cresci, Executive Director Fill & Finish Operations.
The new structure will be integrated with the already existing buildings, where 200 employees currently work, and will meet medium and long term plans for development: "The facility will have eight separate production suites and is designed to be expandable to a total of twelve production suites. It has been designed to handle both existing product forms (syringes and vials) and can be expanded to manufacture new forms currently under development. The facility has been designed to meet the highest worldwide standards for the production of vaccines", says Thomas Lingelbach, Vice President Industrial Operations of Chiron Vaccines.
"The considerable funding allocated for the expansion of our manufacturing activities at Rosia represents both an acknowledgment from Chiron headquarters of the strength of Chiron Vaccines' results to date and a demonstration of the important role that the Italian site will play in the manufacturing structure of Chiron", says Luca Guerzoni, Managing Director of Chiron Srl .
"It is particularly on meningitis, in all its bacterial forms, that Chiron Vaccines plans to focus attention in the next few years, continuing at the same time in the development of new combination vaccines, particularly those based on the Haemophilus influenzae"- concludes Luca Guerzoni. "The strategy of our Company is further endorsed by our goal to get FDA approval of both new facilities by 2005".
ABOUT CHIRON
Chiron Corporation, headquartered in Emeryville, California, is a global pharmaceutical company that leverages a diverse business model to develop and commercialize high-value products that make a difference in people's lives. The company has a strategic focus on cancer and infectious disease. Chiron applies its advanced understanding of the biology of cancer and infectious disease to develop products from its platforms in proteins, small molecules and vaccines. The company commercializes its products through three business units: biopharmaceuticals, vaccines and blood testing.
Chiron Corporation is listed on Nasdaq
ABOUT CHIRON VACCINES
Chiron Vaccines, the fifth largest vaccine business in the world, currently offers more than 30 novel and conventional vaccines for adults and children. Chiron Vaccines' mission is to bring to the market, through innovation and creativity, biological solutions needed for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. Every second, 25 people across more than 70 countries of the world are vaccinated with a Chiron vaccine.
For more information about Chiron, visit the company's website at www.chiron.com
Contacts:
Donatella Latocca
tel. +0577/243256
Eleonora Vannuccini
tel. +0577/243318