BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — Evonik announced today that it has successfully commissioned an advanced biomaterials facility in Birmingham that will support global demand for the use of its RESOMER-brand bioresorbable polymers with implantable medical devices and parenteral drug products.

The expansion will also allow Germany-based Evonik to provide contract manufacturing services to customers seeking to outsource production of their own proprietary biomaterials.

“Birmingham is now a global center of excellence for the design, development and supply of biomaterials,” said John Daly, site manager at Evonik Birmingham Laboratories.

Evonik announced its growth plans in Birmingham in March 2018.

Researchers in the Alabama city played a pioneering role in the development of time-release drug delivery systems, and Birmingham remains a hub for activities in the field through Evonik and others, according to the Birmingham Business Alliance.

EXPANDING CAPABILITIES

Evonik’s new 30,000-square-foot facility in Jefferson County is equipped with multiple cleanrooms, numerous reactors, specialized purification and micronization systems and other equipment.

Together with an adjoining facility in Birmingham, Evonik can now provide an integrated range of biomaterial services at a single U.S. site to support projects from initial feasibility through to commercial production.

The adjacent contract development and manufacturing site also offers a range of formulation development and manufacturing services for parenteral drug products, and application development and scale-up services for implantable medical devices.

“Regardless of the tightness of a customer’s product specifications or batch volume requirements, we have the technical expertise, operational flexibility, and regulatory track record to deliver the highest levels of quality and supply security,” Daly said.

Evonik said it has harmonized the equipment and processes utilized in Birmingham with its other main biomaterials facility in Darmstadt, Germany, giving pharmaceutical and medical device customers a range of dual-sourcing options.

“With the commissioning of our new state-of-the-art biomaterials facility in Birmingham, medical device and pharmaceutical customers have even more flexibility in the supply of standard or custom RESOMER bioresorbable polymers at virtually any clinical or commercial scale,” said Dr. Andreas Karau, Global Head of Biomaterials for Evonik’s Health Care business line.

The Health Care business line serves more than 1,000 pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and medical device customers worldwide.