NEWS
IN BRIEF
SRF to enter pharma SRF is to spend about $ 20 million to build a new pharmaceutical intermediates manufacturing plant at Dahej in India’ s Gujarat state. The company said that this marks“ a significant expansion” in its manufacturing capabilities, as well as representing a strategic entry into this sector alongside its traditional chemical and speciality products business.
Stannous fluoride expansion Solstice has completed a € 5.5 million expansion of its stannous fluoride production facility in Seelze, Germany, increasing capacity by about 45 %. Global demand for stannous fluoride is expected to grow at about 5-6 %/ year through the next decade as it becomes a core ingredient in new oral care products like toothpaste and mouthwash.
Fujifilm opens UK site
Fujifilm Biotechnologies has opened an expansion at its site in Teesside, which it says will be the largest single-use biopharmaceutical CDMO facility in the UK. Built at a cost of about £ 400 million, it covers 10,200 m 2 of space and will be operational within 1H 2026
The facility houses a total of 19,000 litres of capacity in 2,000 and 5,000 litre single-use bioreactors for small- and mid-scale antibody manufacturing, with the flexibility to expand to support customer programmes as needed.
This is the first small- and mid-scale manufacturing site in the company’ s kojoX ecosystem. It also features the SymphonX downstream processing skid, an all-in-one equipment design to run all downstream unit operations across multiple scales.
In parallel, the company has opened its Bioprocess Innovation Centre UK, a laboratory for both high-throughput and continuous process development capabilities. This will also be a global centre of excellence for biomanufacturing innovation and process development. Covering 9,500 m 2, it doubles the site’ s lab footprint.
“ The opening of our UK expansion, will enable us to support our partners’ products from the process development stage to early clinical manufacturing – ranging from low-volume therapies for ultra-rare diseases to commercial biologics all from one site,” said Toshihisa Iida, chairman of Fujifilm Biotechnologies.
Kemvera hits milestones Denver-based Kemvera has completed the process design package for its planned 50,000 tonnes / year commercial-scale plant for biobased acetic acid and ethyl acetate. It has also changed its name from New Iridium“ to reflect its vision to scale biobased chemical solutions using domestic agricultural feedstock”.
New GCC for Sudarshan
Hydrofluoric expansion India’ s Navin Fluorine International has began commercial production at the $ 49.6 million, 40,000 tonnes / year hydrofluoric acid plant at Dahej, Gujarat, which it originally announced in March 2023. Applications include etchants for semiconductor applications, oil production and the manufacture of organofluorine compounds and inorganic fluorides.
Colours and pigments giant Sudarshan Chemical Industries has become the latest Indian firm to establish of a global capability centre( GCC) as a core element of its evolving global operating model. This was developed with Genpact, an agentic and advanced technologies supplier.
The GCC is located alongside the company’ s headquarters at Pune and“ consolidates previously distributed enterprise functions into a single, integrated hub” the company said. It is designed to strengthen coordination across different regions, improve governance and decision flow, and support operations as the business continues to scale.
Sudarshan has expanded considerably in recent years, notably via the acquisition of the Frankfurtbased Heubach Group in 2025. It is now active in over 120 countries and has around 3,900 employees and 19 manufacturing and R & D sites worldwide.
12 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981