Aphena Pharma Solutions announced that the continuing $21 million expansion of its Solid Dose Division in Cookeville, Tenn., is progressing according to schedule, with a planned completion date of April 1.

The expansion, which was first announced in September 2020, includes the acquisition of a 500,000-square-foot property that is purpose-built for FDA manufacturing and packaging operations and represents Aphena’s expansion into biologics, cold chain storage and third-party logistics distribution, with 47,000 square feet of cold chain storage available.

The company says that the current expansion has allowed it to further grow its bottle packaging capacity by installing 10 high-speed bottling lines to start, for solid-based products including tablets, capsules, caplets, soft gels and gel caps. Aphena’s future plan is to install 30 more high-speed lines in the new facility, pushing monthly capacity to over 80 million bottles and becoming a strategic partner in the pharmaceutical solid dose packaging industry.

Aphena’s turnkey bottling services include purchasing all of the primary and secondary packaging materials, including pharmaceutical bottle labeling with serialization support. A variety of configurations and sizes are available, including square bottles, and Aphena says it has the ability to run batches from 1,000 to 10 million bottles under cGMP quality systems.

“This new facility and bottling lines set the foundation for Aphena ’s solid dose packaging future, allowing us to maintain a 50% capacity level for any new projects or surge capacity requirements so that we can continue to stay ahead of our current and future customers’ needs,” says Eric Allen, Aphena’s EVP of sales  and marketing.

Visit www.aphenapharma.com for more information.