West expands SmartDose manufacturing capacity at Scottsdale, Arizona

US drug delivery specialist West Pharmaceutical Services has expanded capabilities at its facility in Scottsdale, Arizona to meet increased demand for the SmartDose electronic wearable injector.

The expansion includes cleanroom manufacturing and additional laboratory space. New jobs are being created in R&D, engineering, quality and operations functions to ramp-up production. It will enable continuing development and production of SmartDose to support customer launch plans and to provide supply-chain security, the company said.

Eric Resnick, President, Pharmaceutical Delivery Systems, Proprietary Products at West, said: 'Expanding our manufacturing capabilities in Scottsdale – and continuing scaling up production in Israel – will enable rapid, dual sourcing to our customers and help them bring innovative new treatments to market.'

Designed to deliver high volumes of injectable drugs over an extended period of time, SmartDose makes it easier for patients to self-administer medication and encourages compliance with prescribed treatments. Patients have already self-administered thousands of doses using SmartDose in clinical settings. West has delivered more than 100,000 units of SmartDose and in excess of 800,000 validated Daikyo Crystal Zenith drug containers to pharmaceutical manufacturers for development projects and clinical trials, including eight active programmes at various stages of pre-commercial development.

Resnick added: 'Medication adherence is an ongoing challenge in the pharmaceutical industry, and non-adherence is a leading cause of poor clinical outcomes and increased healthcare costs.

'We designed SmartDose to be an easy-to-use, intuitive and reliable drug delivery system that can help boost adherence for injectable medications – and the customer response has been tremendous.'