Evonik aims $100M in upgrades at Tippecanoe Labs, bolstering supply chain in U.S. pharmaceutical market
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EVONIK AIMS $100M IN UPGRADES AT TIPPECANOE LABS
Evonik announced plans Wednesday to put $100 million into its Tippecanoe Labs facilities over the next five years, in a move meant to modernize the plant’s equipment and solidify its place in producing components for the U.S. pharmaceutical industry as demand surges.
The company’s announcement was framed around what it called “geopolitical uncertainties,” saying that investing in the current facility just southwest of Lafayette was about strengthening regional production for drug substances and delivery technologies.
“Why that’s so important is that there’s a lot of demands on pharmaceutical production in the U.S. now due to security supply,” Todd Wetli, Evonik Tippecanoe Labs site manager, said Wednesday afternoon. “We need to make sure we’re ready for that. What this investment is going to allow us to do is ensure that we can offer assets to our partners that are reliable and efficient.”
The move comes three years after another large Evonik investment in the facility, when the German-based company broke ground on a $220 million expansion as part of a national effort to make components for vaccines and therapies for infectious diseases. That project, when announced, was expected to add more than 80 jobs at the former Eli Lilly-Tippecanoe Labs plant in Shadeland, just southwest of Lafayette.
Wetli said the announcement from Evonik’s headquarters Wednesday would be aimed at upgrading production in existing parts of the campus on Lilly Road, where more than 650 people work. Company officials said the improvements would include modernization of large reactors and other systems, and to bring more automation and better ergonomics to what Evonik touts as one of the world’s largest facilities for the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients.
“(Active pharmaceutical ingredient) complexity continues to rise, and this investment empowers us to work with our customers on even more challenging molecules for critical indications, such as cancer and metabolic and cardiovascular diseases,” Daniel Fricker, head of the Drug Substance product line at Evonik Health Care, said in a release with Wednesday’s announcement.
“My take is it’s a vote of confidence, not only in the location here by their global headquarters, but really in the whole region,” Mikel Berger, CEO of Greater Lafayette Commerce, said Wednesday. “It’s not just maintenance, it’s an investment. It’s really advancing the company to the next stage with increasing importance of the pharmaceutical supply chain and security to be able to produce those critical components.”
Here are a few excerpts from a conversation with Wetli Wednesday afternoon.
