The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

PharmaChem Technologies will break ground at month’s end on a $120 million expansion that will double the Bahamian workforce and increase the plant’s output value by 67 per cent.

Randy Thompson, PharmaChem’s chief executive, said the new multi-product manufacturing plant would enable the company to diversify into the production of drugs combating liver and other diseases.

He added that once complete, the expansion would take PharmaChem’s current $15 million economic output to $25 million, and more than 200 Bahamians would be employed.

Mr Thompson, who was addressing the 18th annual Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference, said yesterday that the project will be the ‘catalyst’ for much-needed foreign and domestic investment.

“We are preparing to break ground at the end of this month for a state-of the-art, multi-product manufacturing plant at our West Sunrise Highway site,” he said.

PharmaChem, which began commercial operations in 2004, sits on 69 acres and currently has 110 employees.

“By 2018, early 2019, when the plant is built we are going to be in excess of 200 Bahamians, having climbed from 66,” Mr Thompson said.

“Spending $120 million to expand the plant’s capacity is indeed a bold agenda. We take great pride in being one of the forerunners in the revitalisation and enlargement of Freeport’s and, by extension, Grand Bahama’s industrial sector. I believe this project will be the catalyst for much needed foreign as well as domestic investment.”

He added: “This development will not only create temporary jobs in the construction sector for the next two-and-a-half years, but will also open up new employment opportunities for qualified high school and college graduates interested in pursuing careers in fine chemical manufacturing.

“We can reasonably expect that the ripple effect of this investment will also provide opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs.”

PharmaChem, which was founded by Italian entrepreneuer, Pietro Stefanutti, supplies antiretroviral API drugs (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) for Gilead, which employs them in the worldwide treatment of HIV/AIDS.

“We currently manufacture one single API for Gilead, and it’s an antiretroviral drug, which has become the backbone of Gilead’s HIV franchise. We are touching the world and treating over one million HIV patients around the world, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Mr Thompson.

“Part of our reason for making the investment now is to be able to move from HIV/AIDS, which would remai, but to look at liver diseases and any other innovative drugs that Gilead would bring to bear.”