Unilab to build new mfg facility in Laguna

Local pharmaceuticals giant United Laboratories Inc. is spending over a billion pesos to put up a new production facility for liquids and syrups within its 35,000-square meter Pharma Campus in Biñan, Laguna.

In an interview, Unilab president and chief executive officer Carlos Ejercito said the move is part of a plan to move all its production facilities in Mandaluyong City to Biñan, Laguna. The Pharma campus, he said, shall have complete facilities that are at par with the world’s best, making it the most modern manufacturing plant for pharmaceutical and healthcare products in the country today.

Just last week, the company launched the P1.7-billion facility of its newest manufacturing subsidiary Amherst Laboratories. Started in March 2005 and completed one and a half years later in October 2006, Amherst produces mostly prescription medicines in tablet, capsule and powder form, as well as ointments and non-steroidal creams. It expects to produce more than one billion tablets a year.

Some of the notable products Unilab, and now through Amherst, manufacture are its famous Biogesic brand of paracetamol, Hydrite rehydration salts, Dolfenal brand of Mefenamic Acid and Lormide tablet.

Ejercito said the expansion is aimed at further cementing Unilab’s leaderhip in the Philippine pharmaceutical industry and strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia.

Unilab produces a wide range of prescription and consumer health products covering all major therapeutic segments. Many of these products are now the leading brands in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Myanmar.

The expansion also reinforces Unilab’s confidence in the Philippine economy and its support of government initiatives to help promote the country as an investment site.

The Unilab board of directors approved capital outlays amounting to billions of pesos to further modernize the company’s IT system for greater efficiencies and importantly, for the construction of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Laguna.

Unilab, the most dominant provider of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals in the Philippines, has developed significant technical and marketing alliances with major multinational pharmaceutical companies and research organizations based in the United States, Europe and Japan.