Uptown Greenville, NC

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Pharmaceutical company brings more investment to Greenville

The Daily Reflector Greenville, NC (August 25, 2016) - A pharmaceutical development and manufacturing company announced Wednesday it is renovating an existing building to triple the capacity of its stability storage space.

Metrics Contract Services is investing $3.5 million in its facility at 5440 Martin Luther King Jr. Highway to create a 15,000-square foot space, a company spokeswoman said. The facility, scheduled to open spring 2017, will feature large walk-in chambers with state-of-the-art controls, system redundancies and back-up power supply, according to a news release. The investment is being driven by client growth, said John S. Ross, executive vice president. “As a full-service, global drug development and manufacturing organization, Metrics is committed to ensuring we adequately support clients’ needs throughout their product’s life cycle, and providing sufficient, reliable stability services is one way we do that,” Ross said. “Our goal is to become the oral-dose ‘concept to commercialization’ CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) of choice for pharma companies, and our larger stability storage capacity represents part of that commitment to meet client needs.” Stability storage provides specific environmental conditions for drug substance and drug products that ensure medical compounds don’t break down during storage by consumers, the news release said. The facility will meet International Conference on Harmonisation standards, the news release said. Metrics’ stability chambers meet strict temperature, humidity and uniformity controls. Rooms and chambers are continuously monitored to comply with ICH standards as well as current good manufacturing practices. Metrics’ expanded stability storage facility is being constructed with automated emergency power generation to ensure integrity of stored samples. System redundancies mean environmental controls remain in place in chambers should a primary conditioner go down. The parent company of Metrics, Mayne Pharma, already is investing $80 million to expand facilities and equipment, including 10-plus new analytical labs and formulation development suites at its Sugg Parkway location. Metrics and Mayne Pharma have committed to hiring 110 new scientists, quality assurance specialists and other technicians to support expanded operations, increasing their U.S. workforce by more than a third. Metrics also will introduce commercial-scale manufacturing capability including multi-particulate layering, bead-coating fluid bed technology and significantly increased capacity to manufacture highly potent products. The expanded and improved facilities include engineered solutions to support the handling of potent compounds and to mitigate cross-contamination risks, along with an industry-leading design to meet the various requirements of international regulatory agencies.