Minister Fientje Moerman inaugurates production startup

Geel, May 24 - Today Fientje Moerman, vice minister-president of the Flemish government and Flemish minister for economy, enterprise, science, innovation and foreign trade, officiated at the startup of production

of the active ingredient of one of the HIV/AIDS medications from the Johnson & Johnson group. 

Tibotec, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson located in Mechelen, is a world leader in research & development of medicines for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Currently the company has three promising compounds in various phases of clinical research with a view to meeting the growing need for innovative medicines. For the first of these, TMC 114, a protease inhibitor, a registration file has been submitted in December 2005 to the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. In January of this year approval file was submitted to the European authorities. The other candidate medicines are TMC 125, now in Phase 3 trials, and TMC 278, in phase 2. In addition, Tibotec is conducting research into a range of substances for other infectious diseases, such as hepatitis C and tuberculosis. 

The production of medicines from Tibotec is the responsibility of Janssen Pharmaceutica. In Europe these products will be sold by Janssen-Cilag and in the United States by Tibotec Therapeutics a division of Ortho Biotech Products, L. P. The preparation of the production was done in a very short period of time, starting in early 2004, and in a time-span of only two years the installation is ready for production. As yet, production is limited to the supply of active ingredients for large-scale clinical research trials, but an expansion to full capacity is envisaged. The first spray dryer required an investment of 15 million euro, the second spray dryer is planned for next year and will require an investment of 19 million euro. For this and other installations, the Geel production plant of Janssen Pharmaceutica will invest close to 60 million euro in 2006. 

Dr. Stef Heylen, Vice-President of Tibotec, was particularly pleased about the cooperation between the two companies. “This is a peak moment for a Belgian research and development company. Making innovative medicines is a complex business for every researcher. Our contribution consists in the ability to bring this off for the world market for one of the most destructive diseases that plague us today. We have every reason to be proud of the cooperation within Johnson & Johnson, which for us has been enormously important.”

Dr. Ajit Shetty, managing director of Janssen Pharmaceutica, explained how important Flanders and Belgium are for world health. “It can not be stressed enough that here in Flanders and Belgium, we are world toppers as far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned. The Belgian plants of Janssen Pharmaceutica alone already distribute more than 2 billion patient treatments per year! The unique strength of Johnson & Johnson is its specialization in extremely diverse areas. In our worldwide strategy, “innovative product solutions” and “cooperation” are enshrined as essential elements for continued growth. The announcement today is a beautiful example of this. Cross fertilization with this type of knowledge always leads to excellent results.”

Minister Moerman emphasized the importance of innovative companies for Flanders and Belgium. “Thanks to its pharmaceutical and biotechnological innovations, Flanders has made a name for itself on a world scale. That is good not only for the health of patients worldwide, but also for the health of the Belgian economy. After the United States and the United Kingdom, this country has the largest number of medicines in development, and after Switzerland and Ireland, we have the biggest workforce in the pharmaceutical industry, in both cases in proportion of course to our population. Because this situation requires a coherent policy, we have established a Life Science Platform in Flanders, which will be presenting its first report next month.

Background information on HIV/Aids and Tibotec is to be found on: www.tibotec.com.

Background information on Janssen Pharmaceutica is to be found on: www.janssenpharmaceutica.com.

For more information:
Janssen Pharmaceutica: Stefan Gijssels, GSM 0473/710.425
Tibotec: Hans Vanavermaete, tel. +32(0)15/46.10.17