This development aims to bolster the company's production capacity for sterile injectables secondary packaging, responding to the increasing market demand.

The Macungie site, located in the heart of the US East Coast’s biopharma community, is currently equipped to offer pharmaceutical primary and secondary packaging services.

Sharp expects the expansion to enhance its secondary packaging capabilities, including vial labelling, autoinjector/pen assembly and labelling, injectables kitting, and prefilled syringe assembly and labelling.

These services are for pharmaceutical and biotech companies seeking reliable packaging solutions.

Sharp CCO Jeff Benedict said: “Demand for sterile injectable medicines has skyrocketed over the last few years due to increased investment in the biologics industry across all therapeutic categories, rare and orphan disease therapies, and blockbuster GLP-1 agonists.”

The Macungie site expansion will create 157,500ft² of additional space, resulting in a total area of 315,000ft². This will take Sharp's global footprint to more than 1.7 million square feet.

Sharp CEO Kevin Orfan said: “With this expansion, the Macungie site will double in size allowing Sharp to offer additional capacity and capabilities for our biopharma clients for complex biologics and small-molecule injectable medicines.”

The expansion plan will include the construction and fit-out of new packaging suites, cold storage rooms, and ambient warehouse space.

It will also include the installation of equipment and technology to support the assembly, labelling, and packaging of injectables.

Orfan added: “Once the GMP [good manufacturing practice] infrastructure is in place, we anticipate adding 75-100 colleagues to the Sharp team.” 

Recently, Sharp Services commissioned a new 660-pallet cold storage facility, maintaining temperatures between 2-8°C.