The American pharmaceutical company Pfizer will produce raw materials for the COVID-19 vaccine at the former Hospira facilities in Savski Marof by the end of this year. After Prime Minister Andrej Plenković announced this at a government meeting on Thursday, the information was confirmed to Lider by the American company, stating that since Pfizer and BioNTech began globally distributing their COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020, the company has been compelled to enhance its production and supply chain due to demand, which includes expanding their existing vaccine production facilities, engaging more suppliers, and involving additional Pfizer/BioNTech facilities as well as contract manufacturers worldwide in vaccine production.
As confirmed to Lider by the company, Pfizer will currently engage its two European facilities in the production process, which will be part of the global supply chain network for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. These are Pfizer’s facilities in Grange Castle, Ireland, and the Croatian facility.
– Pfizer’s Grange Castle facility will produce mRNA active substance, while its Zagreb facility will support the production of raw materials. Given the extensive technology transfer process, on-site development, installation of new equipment, and various regulatory approvals required for the locations, we expect both facilities to be operational by the end of 2021 – Pfizer announced.
They did not comment on how much the investment will be, but if the Prime Minister is to be believed, it amounts to 10 million dollars.
The expansion of production at Pfizer’s facilities in Europe will not only benefit Ireland and Croatia; other companies on the Old Continent are also included in the new supply chain. These are companies Thermo Fisher Scientific and Dermapharm, which are expected to assist in drug formulation, sterile filling, packaging, and cold chain storage, and they will be supported, they state, by Baxter, Delpharm, Sanofi, Siegfried, Polymun, and Biotech.
Let us recall that the former Pliva biotechnology facility in Savski Marof was owned by Pliva until 2008. Pliva had a strong research-biotechnology potential until then, but after selling to Barr, and the subsequent acquisition of the company by Teva, that part of the business had to undergo restructuring and did not have a bright future. In 2008, the newly completed biotechnology facility in Savski Marof was taken over by the American Hospira, along with all employees and projects. Financial details of that transaction were never disclosed. At that time, Hospira was a global pharmaceutical company specializing in vaccines and injections, and interest in a small facility in Eastern Europe was not surprising given the aspirations of the Americans from Hospira at that time. However, in 2015, Pfizer acquired the American Hospira for a price of as much as 15 billion dollars. With that transaction, the facility in Savski Marof also came into the possession of the American pharmaceutical company, which until recently was best known for Viagra, and which today is one of the leading manufacturers of vaccines against COVID-19.
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