Life Sciences…
China plans pharm crackdown
Chinese health officials are planning to increase enforcement of the international good manufacturing practice (GMP) system next year, a move that could leave many of the country's pharmaceutical manufacturers in the cold.

China's State Drug Administration is planning a crackdown on the firms in an effort to cut down the number of sub-standard drugs being produced, according to recent published reports. The crackdown will take place next year.

Bai Huiliang, head of SDA's security supervision office, told the publication Economic Information Daily that a large number of the more than 6,300 pharmaceutical plants operating in China will likely be ordered to halt production if they do not meet GMP standards within a restricted time period. Those companies will have the chance to reapply for GMP certification.—JVP

Durect constructs commercial manufacturing facility
Durect Corp. has started construction of a commercial manufacturing facility that is expected to meet the company's needs for Phase III clinical trials currently planned for late 2001 and commercial market supply for its lead product, Duros sufentanil. The 8000-square-foot facility located in Cupertino, CA, will house a state-of-the-art cleanroom space and an advanced manufacturing process capable of supporting clean assembly and aseptic filling operations.

“This facility will allow us to commercially develop therapies that will improve the quality of life for patients with chronic conditions,” says Jim Brown, president and CEO.—LB

McCarthy begins expansion for Genentech
McCarthy is serving as general contractor for a $17-million cGMP warehouse and administrative facilities expansion and renovation project at the biotech firm Genentech's Vacaville, CA, campus. Building 3A, a new 42,000-square-foot cGMP warehouse, which is adjacent to the existing manufacturing facility's warehouse, will include 2000 square feet of ISO Class 5 (Class 100) cleanroom space for material sampling. The remaining space will house warehouse, specialized material storage and office space. The project is scheduled to be completed in spring 2001.—LB

Seminar focuses on transporting infectious/diagnostic substances
The first U.S. biomedical seminar on the Global Transportation of Infectious & Diagnostic Substances is scheduled for April 20, 2001, at the Wyndham Miami Beach Resort. The wide-ranging scope of the seminar is illustrated by the variety and caliber of the organizations from which speakers are being invited. These include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IATA, U.S. Department of Transportation, The Pan-Americal Health Organization, American Airlines, Lab Corp., Bristol-Myers Squibb, U.S. Customs and a leading U.S. transportation law firm.

In addition to the latest regulations, the seminar will address the impact of transportation issues on clinical trials, practical topics relating to good practice, the effects of inadequate transportation, precautions on pharmacokinetics and patients' safety and the responsibility of shippers.—LB

Jacobs/Bovis Lend Lease selected for biotech campus
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. in partnership with Bovis Lend Lease, has been selected for the $600-million design, construction and validation project for American Home Product's biotechnology campus located at Grange Castle in South Dublin County, Ireland.

The expansion involves the construction of a one-million-square-foot biopharmaceutical facility on a 90-acre site—creating Europe's largest integrated biotech campus. The planned operation at Grange Castle will include a drug development facility, a drug bulk substance facility and a drug product facility. Beginning in mid-2004, the campus will develop and manufacture products in the therapy areas of rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, anti-inflammatory agents and child vaccines.—LB

ISP adds polymerization reactor and spray dryer
International Specialty Products (ISP) has added a 4000-gallon stainless reactor and spray dryer facility to its Texas City plant. The reactor will be used to produce water-based PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone), especially Plasdones, ISP's primary polymers for pharmaceutical-grade excipients. This agitated stainless-steel vessel employs state-of-the-art instrumentation.

The spray dryer is highly automated and designed for the company's PVP homopolymers and copolymers. The dryer has the ability to produce a wide range of powders requiring varying drying conditions.—LB

ISP expands capacity
International Specialty Products (ISP) has upgraded its Freetown, MA, plant for the purpose of manufacturing a number of personal care products, including emollients, emulsifiers and some sunscreens. Thus far, a number of improvements have been made to enhance the plant's capabilities, including the addition of dedicated processing equipment specifically for personal care products.

The plant is an ISO 9002-registered facility offering a world-class pilot plant and development laboratory to full-scale production in reactors as large as 10,000 gallons and a state-of-the-art environmental control system. According to the company, the Freetown plant also meets or surpasses the current guidelines of the Massachusetts Department of Protection, the U.S. EPA and the U.S. DEA.

“We have made a substantial investment in our Freetown plant to meet the growing needs of our personal care customers, and will continue doing so as we move toward our goal of a cGMP environment,” says Ron Brandt, senior vice president and director of commercial operations, Americas.—LB

Emerging Markets…
Agilent adds fiber-optic development building
Agilent Technologies Inc., a maker of fiber-optic transceivers, is adding a $20 million, 80,000 square-foot fiber-optic R&D center to its Ipswich, England, facility.

Anticipated completion of the facility is December 2001. Agilent expects to hire an additional 500 employees, the majority of the positions in engineering and research and development. The facility is one step towards Agilent's goal of quadrupling its fiber-optic product manufacturing capacity over the next two years.—MAD

Minister opens laser building
Science Minister Lord Sainsbury opened a new building for an Oxfordshire supplier of high-power pulsed lasers. Reportedly, Exitech at Hanborough Park, Long Hanborough, now has one of the U.K.'s most advanced cleanrooms for research on industrial lasers. The new building links the company's manufacturing and research buildings and doubles the size of its cleanroom.—LB

Semiconductor/Electronics…
New building, bigger cleanrooms
Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. (Wayne, NJ) recently announced the opening of a $17 million, 182,000 square-foot facility in Garden Grove, CA, and with that came the expansion of ISO Class 5 (Class 100) and ISO Class 7 (Class 10,000) cleanrooms.

According to the company, the microelectronics division tripled the size of its ISO Class 5 and 7 cleanrooms to approximately 2,000 square-feet each, while the machined and molded components business unit doubled the size of its ISO Class 7 cleanroom to nearly 5,000 square feet and added a second environment of that type to the molding area.

Art Branstine, vice president of Saint-Gobain's engineered components group, says all production, even in the machine shop, is conducted in a controlled environment.—MAD

Intel delays CO fab opening
Intel recently announced it has postponed the opening of a new 500,000-square-foot 8-inch CMOS manufacturing plant due to a lack of skilled construction workers in the area.

According to published reports, Intel officials pushed back the scheduled opening of its $1.2 billion Colorado Springs plant from November to some time early next year. The company say it was unable to complete a 120,000-square-foot cleanroom facility on schedule due to lack of skilled electric workers and pipefitters. There are currently more than 3,000 construction workers on the site.

Officials say the delay won't affect the more than 800 employees—mostly technicians and administrative workers—who have already been hired to work at the plant.

The building was built in 1996 by Rockwell International Corp. and acquired by Intel in February 2000.—JVP

MEMS and Philips team up
Standard MEMS Inc., a manufacturer of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), has teamed up with Philips Semiconductors (Albuquerque, NM) to build a MOS-8-inch wafer fab for MEMS and integrated discrete semiconductors in Itzehoe, Germany.

In addition to MEMS, the fab will also produce complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) products, using 0.35- and 0.25-micron CMOS processes. Research and development of other MEMS products will also be conducted at the facility in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology, which along with MGB Schleswig-Holstein, has minority interest in the $160 million joint venture.

The new fab will create about 200 new jobs and have the capacity to produce an estimated 300,000 wafers a year, and silicon output will be shared between Standard MEMS and Philips. Groundbreaking was scheduled for this month, with first silicon production expected in the latter half of 2002.—MAD

Praxair and Supercritical Systems join forces
Praxair Inc. and Supercritical Systems Inc. will jointly develop an environmentally friendly semiconductor wafer cleaning technology. The companies are developing a technology for photoresist removal using supercritical fluids and co-solvents. Praxair will develop a carbon-dioxide supply system and exhaust gas management system that optimizes the gas supply for Supercritical Systems' process equipment. By cooperating in the development stage, the two companies will ensure that an integrated tool and gas management system is available that optimizes performance and cost of ownership and accelerates the time to market for this wafer cleaning technology.—LB

ESRF running wafer analysis service
European Sychrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France) now has a 200 mm and 300 mm silicon wafer contamination analysis service. The service exploits the high intensity and energy tunability of the synchrotron X-ray source, achieving high detection sensitivities with rapid acquisition times ands allowing fast mapping capabilities. The service, a collaboration with CEA/LEFI and France Telecom, is open to all companies.—MV

Ausimont and Air Products form alliance
Ausimont USA Inc. (Lehigh Valley, PA) and Air Products and Chemicals Inc., have formed an alliance to market and supply Ausimont's Sifren 46 to the North American semiconductor industry. Sifren 46 is a specialty gas that provides high etch rates, good aspect ratio control and high selectivity to photoresist in critical dielectric etch applications. The product was developed with Applied Materials. Under the alliance, Air Products will serve as the exclusive North American distributor of Sifren 46 with the capability to supply customers in other geographies.—MV

Philips Analytical expands
Philips Analytical (Natick, MA) will expand its Chandler, AZ, facility. The 10,000 square foot office and lab center will support Philips' new activities in the semiconductor market and help solidify the company's links with the research and production environment on the West Coast and in the Midwest. Philips Analytical's engineers will staff the facility, which will include a full demonstration and application laboratory. The center is scheduled to open in February 2001.—MV

Intel not affected by Mideast clashes
Even during the political unrest being felt throughout Israel, Intel continues to run its facilities, notably Fab 8, located in Jerusalem and Fab 18, located in Kiryat Gat, without any visible signs of interruptions or delays.

“We will continue to monitor [the situation] but we've been through this in various situations and have been able to continue to do business without a negative impact,” says an Intel spokesperson.—MV

August expands headquarters
August Technology Corp. (Bloomington, MN) has expanded its headquarters to 63,000 square feet, a 50 percent increase. The facility will now have three new cleanrooms, an engineering lab, increased production area, and more engineering and customer service space. The company has options on an additional 50,000 square feet available for future occupancy. August has doubled its employee base in the past year.—MV

Micron to reactivate 300 mm fab
Micron Technology Inc. (Lehi, UT) is gearing up its DRAM fab in Lehi, UT, for production of 300 mm wafers, more than four years after calling off production amid a global slump in commodity memory prices. The company is close to installing a 300 mm wafer production line and may start initial volume production in late 2002, depending on market conditions. For the past few years, Micron has been using the facility for back-end testing of finished DRAM.—MV

DMK to finish project for Celestica
Tustin, CA-based DMK is nearing completion of a $2.5-million high-tech expansion project for Celestica, an outsource electronic assembly firm (Foothill Ranch/Lake Forest, CA). Designed by Jeff Coffman and Associates (Fullerton, CA), construction began on the 68,000-square-foot warehouse tenant-improvement project last August.

The expansion for Celestica incorporated several complex details that had to be accomplished in a three-month schedule. DMK is building an office mezzanine, adding 2000 amps of power and laying 36,000 square feet of electrostatic dissipative flooring over a concrete slab.

This flooring, which requires a special epoxy for installation, prevents a static charge from being transferred to the equipment during assembly. The company is also constructing an 800-square-foot isolated computer room on the mezzanine with its own dedicated “clean” power and data lines, raised computer flooring and an independent air-conditioning unit.—LB

ATMI to expand GaAs capacity
ATMI Inc. (Danbury, CT) intends to expand its gallium arsenide (GaAs) epi capacity. ATMI's new 50,000-square-foot facility (Phoenix) will contain 11 Aixtron 2600 MOVPE high throughput reactors with space planned for eight more. One of the main reasons for the expansion is the growth of mobile handsets and other wireless devices, which require gallium arsenide chips.—MV

Business Briefs…
KKR buys businesses from Laporte
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., L.P. has agreed to acquire major divisions from Laporte plc for total consideration of $1.175 billion. Following completion of the transaction, the compounds and electronics, pigments and additives and formulated products divisions of Laporte will be merged into a new company headquartered in Princeton, NJ, and will retain the existing operating management.

Mike Kenny, previously divisional chairman and a main board director of Laporte, will be president. The new company will be owned in its entirety by KKR and the management team.—LB