Ben Venue to close, 1,100 employees to be laid off

Ann Thayer covers the story in this week's C&EN:

Boehringer Ingelheim, the German pharmaceutical company and contract manufacturer, will close its entire Ben Venue Laboratories operation in Bedford, Ohio, by the end of 2013. In August, the firm said it would close part of the facility and cut 400 jobs. The full closure will affect 1,100 employees. 

One of Ben Venue’s major products is Johnson & Johnson’s anticancer drug Doxil, a nanoscale liposomal form of doxorubicin. In late September, J&J warned about likely supply shortages this fall; the shortages may now extend into 2014. The Food & Drug Administration did approve a generic version of Doxil from India’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries in February. 

Boehringer has struggled to keep the Ohio site open after a series of drug quality problems and has been operating since January under a consent decree with FDA. “Despite the ongoing support of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, the tremendous dedication of employees, and significant investments in facility upgrades, the company cannot return to sustainable production,” Boehringer says....

I would love to know the inside story of this site and its issues; sterile injectables seems to be quite a troubled area of pharmaceutical manufacturing these days...