Blood therapeutics company Grifols (Nasdaq: GRFS) held a grand opening Tuesday for a new fractionation facility in Clayton, a plant expected to employ more than 200 new workers.
Grifols’ North Fractionation Facility sits at the same site as the company’s existing fractionation facility. When the new facility starts up operations, it will nearly double the company’s production capacity in Clayton. Sergi Roura, president of Grifols Therapeutics, said the expansion comes as the Barcelona, Spain-based company sees increased demand for its existing plasma-based drugs and also adds new therapy targets to its drug portfolio.
“It’s demand for existing therapeutics from Grifols,” Roura said. “We’re expanding the market worldwide and also growing more indications for our products for populations diagnosed with these diseases. It’s a combination of the two.”
Grifols, which reported more than $3.7 billion in 2013 revenue, makes therapeutics for a range rare and life-threatening diseases including immune deficiencies, hemophilia and genetic emphysema. Grifols therapies are made from proteins found in plasma. The Clayton site takes plasma from collection centers around the country and fractionates it. Fractionation is the process in which the proteins used to make the blood therapies are separated from plasma.
Talecris acquisition
Grifols boosted its North American presence in 2011 with its $4 billion acquisition of Research Triangle Park-based Talecris Biotherapeutics. While the companies were competitors, there was little geographical overlap between the two companies. Though Grifols had a U.S. presence in Los Angeles, where it still operates another fractionation facility along with its U.S. headquarters, the company’s primary market was Europe. Meanwhile, Talecris primarily served the North American market.
Prior to the Grifols acquisition, Talecris had planned on expanding in Clayton. Roura said that the new $370 million facility stems from Talecris’ original growth plans combined with the growth plans for Grifols in North America, which is now the company’s biggest market. Roura said the company chose to expand in North Carolina because with 233 acres in Clayton, much of it yet to be developed, Grifols has more space available than it has in Los Angeles. While the new facility will add 200 workers to the 1,650 employees it has in Johnston County, the space for growth could lead to additional jobs created in Clayton in the future.
Grifols is currently the largest Spanish company with U.S. operations; it employs more than 10,000 U.S. workers, most of them in North Carolina.
The new Grifols plant, totaling 155,000 square feet, is not yet operational. The company has received clearance from European regulators on the facility and is awaiting the O.K. from the Food and Drug Administration, said Don Mather, director of manufacturing for the new facility. That clearance is expected by the first quarter of 2015.
Doubling capacity
The new Clayton fractionation facility will almost double the company’s annual production capacity in Clayton to 6 million liters. The North Fractionation Facility will be the largest of its kind in the world, surpassing in capacity a plant from blood therapeutics leader Baxter International (NYSE:BAX), Mather said. The plant employs new technologies. For example, current fractionation facilities operate at a chilly 41 degrees Fahrenheit. But the new Grifols facility can operate at ambient temperatures, which is much more comfortable for the workers, Mather said. The new Clayton facility also introduces more automation. Automation doesn’t make fractionation faster but it reduces the chances for human error and microbial contamination in the process.
While Clayton handles fractionation and drug manufacturing, it shares R&D with the Grifol’s RTP site. Roura declined to state specific disease targets, though he did say that Alzheimer’s disease is one indication that Grifols is focused on.
