Amneal is planning an expansion of its New York facilities that will create hundreds of jobs as it and Impax Labs near completion of a planned merger.
Amneal Pharmaceuticals is planning an expansion of its New York facilities that will create hundreds of jobs as it and Impax Laboratories near completion of a planned merger.
In an interview with Newsday, co-Chief Executive Officer Chintu Patel said the company will add 100,000 square feet of space to its South Yaphank facility to accommodate higher sales and new products. As the company moves forward with the expansion, Patel predicted it would hire about 400 new employees over the next 18 months, Newsday said. The company currently maintains 495,000 square feet of space at that facility, but Patel said Amneal was running out of space. Newsday noted that the space has previously expanded and is about quadruple its original size.
The expansion was announced Wednesday during a ceremony showing off the company’s new energy-efficient equipment. That energy efficient equipment secured Amneal more than $600,000 in rebate checks from PSEG Long Island. Amneal said the energy efficiency improvements helped cut its electric consumption by 976,257-kilowatt hours per year. In a statement, Amneal said that reduction is the equivalent of reducing energy consumption in 78.5 homes for one year or removing 156 cars from the road per year.
The energy efficient equipment was installed in 2013 during a previous $150 million expansion, Newsday said.
The company did not share how much the expansion is expected to cost nor did they provide a timeline for when it will begin. Newsday said the most recent expansion was supported by tax breaks and grants from the state and local government.
In October, Amneal and Impax announced a merger that will make the company the fifth largest generics business in the United States. The new company, Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc., will have a portfolio of about 165 generic drugs. Under terms of the deal, Amneal Holdings will own approximately 75 percent of the new company and Impax shareholders will own approximately 25 percent.
The deal is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2018. The combination of the two companies is expected to achieve annual cost savings of approximately $200 million within three years. That cash flow will be used to pay debt and invest in the new entity’s pipeline. The combination of the two companies is expected to create a pipeline of approximately 150 pending ANDAs and 165 projects in active stages of development. Last week, the company launched its first product of the year, budesonide caplets, a generic version of AstraZeneca’s Crohn’s disease drug Entocort.
Patel told Newsday that the hope is to have some of the Impax products manufactured in the Amneal facilities. Impax uses a contract manufacturing company.
