April 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Green Cross plans to complete construction of its new facility in Canada, which will produce intravenous immunoglobulin and albumin, during the first half of 2017, according to the South Korean biopharmaceutical firm on March 13.

Commercial production is expected to begin in 2018 in order to produce plasma protein products for the domestic, US and Chinese markets.

“Once operational, the site will have a 1 million liter capacity annually which pushes up Green Cross’ total capacity to 2.7 million liter by adding plants in China and Ochang in South Korea,” the company said.

It is the fifth-largest in the world following other global drug makers that manufacture plasma-derived products including Irish Shire, Spain-based Grifols, Australia‘s CSL and Octapharma Plasma in Switzerland.

“Canada is the largest market in terms of per capita use of intravenous immune globulin. Despite the high demand, the country doesn’t have a local plasma-processing company,” Um Yeo-jin, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities.

The Canadian government has been trying to attract such companies since it faced supply shortage of intravenous immunoglobulin in 2017, she added.

Green Cross specializes in the development and manufacturing of plasma derivatives, vaccines and recombinant proteins.

In line with the construction of the new plant, Green Cross is expanding the number of blood donation centers in the US.

It seeks to establish 30 blood donation centers in the US by 2020 in order to secure 1 million liter of plasma a year.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)