The western Michigan city where the first U.S. doses of a coronavirus vaccine were manufactured is about to get another leading role in fighting the pandemic.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is to announce Monday that it will add 250 new jobs to its 1,300-acre Portage manufacturing facility as part of a $120 million investment to boost production of its antiviral COVID-19 pill Paxlovid.
The factory, which is in Kalamazoo County, will be the sole U.S. manufacturer of the active ingredients and starting materials Pfizer uses to make Paxlovid, Mike McDermott, the company’s chief global supply officer, told the Free Press in an exclusive interview.
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“Our Kalamazoo, Michigan, site was not only at the center of the production of our vaccine, producing (nearly) a billion doses … serving virtually every U.S. citizen but also many countries around the world, but now with Paxlovid we also have the opportunity for our Kalamazoo site to support the effort as well,” McDermott said.
The prescription drug treatment, when used in the first five days of a mild or moderate coronavirus infection, was shown in clinical trials to be 89% effective in preventing hospitalization and death among people at high risk for severe disease from the virus.
Paxlovid won emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. Since then, more than 1 million dose packs have been prescribed in the U.S.
The drug should be taken twice a day for five days and has been authorized for use in people ages 12 and older who weigh at least 88 pounds with COVID-19 who are at high risk for severe disease.
“Our Kalamazoo, Michigan, site is our largest plant globally. It’s also our largest active pharmaceutical ingredient plant globally. We’re really proud of the capability of this site,” McDermott said.
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With this expansion, it will become the company’s primary global source of active ingredients for Paxlovid as Pfizer aims to produce 120 million packs this year, McDermott said.
“We’ve actually already shipped 12 million packs. As we stand today, we have shipped that to 37 countries,” he said.
About 5 million courses of Paxlovid have been delivered to the U.S. so far, McDermott said.
“We also use a Pfizer site in Ireland to make the active ingredient and then our actual tablet and and packaging operations are in Europe — Germany and Italy,” he said.
“The incremental investment in Kalamazoo will allow us to expand our capacity and give us more redundancy and capability here in the U.S.”
With the addition of 250 new workers — which will include scientists, packaging and logistics experts, active pharmaceutical ingredient operators, engineers, quality assurance personnel…
Read More: Pfizer adding 250 jobs to Kalamazoo site, where it will make Paxlovid