AstraZeneca plans to invest AU $100 million (US $79.2 million) in its manufacturing operations in Sydney, Australia, which will fund three specialized production lines for respiratory medicines.

The three specialized production lines are in addition to eight existing specialized lines at the company’s North Ryde site in Sydney. Each production line has the capacity to produce over 70 million units per year of the asthma drug, Pulmicort (budesonide inhalation suspension) Respules delivered in a jet nebulizer. AstraZeneca projects that by 2025, the site will be producing more than 1 billion respules. The medicine is produced in Australia for markets such as China.

The expanded manufacturing capacity will boost international exports from the North Ryde site in Sydney to over AU $2.4 billion (US $1.90 billion) over the next four years and will result in an additional 60 jobs at the facility. The firm, Andrew Donald Design Engineering, will build each new production line to AstraZeneca’s custom-design specification. The machines will take a team of 36 people over 12 months to produce.

Over the last five years, AstraZeneca has invested AU $105 million (US $83.2 million) in the in the North Ryde site.

Source: AstraZeneca