Active since 1972, specialized in the production of solid oral tablets, the Pfizer plant in Ascoli Piceno is one of the production centers of excellence in the global pharmaceutical panorama. For 50 years – explains a note – it has been one of the main key suppliers for Pfizer: it not only guarantees high-quality medicines to patients in more than 100 countries around the world, with a production volume of 130 million packs and about 4 billions of tablets/capsules, but is also the sole global supplier of Sutent, an oncology drug for the treatment of gastrointestinal and kidney cancers. With around 1000 employees, it is also a point of reference for the economy of the Marches and the province of Ascoli Piceno, with a direct impact on the Region’s GDP deriving from the industrial sector of around 2%.
Pfizer has selected the Ascoli Piceno plant, together with those of Freiburg in Germany and Newbridge in Ireland – continues the note – as one of the main production and packaging sites for the oral antiviral drug against Covid-19, Paxlovid*. Therefore, once the active ingredient has been received, the site carries out the production process of the tablets and packaging, and then distributes the treatment all over the world. The structure has adapted highly complex management lines to package the two active ingredients of the antiviral together on a large scale, with an investment currently estimated at around 30 million dollars.
That’s not all: the plant was chosen as the site for the production and packaging of the anti-Covid 19 antiviral due to the technological content of the site, the high professionalism of the people who work there, the ability demonstrated over the years to guarantee extremely reliable the supply of medicines all over the world, products with high quality standards and attention to the environment. Environmental sustainability – continues the note – is one of Pfizer’s cornerstones, which has the goal of becoming ‘carbon free’ by 2030, through the reduction of energy consumption, the recovery and reduction of waste, the safeguarding of water, air and soil and the awareness of employees and suppliers.
In line with this policy, sustainable development and energy conservation projects are active in the Ascoli Piceno plant which operate on energy recovery, the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. These actions have allowed the plant to save around 4,000 tons of CO2 every year: as if the Ascoli Piceno plant provided clean electricity, all year round, to 180 families; as if every day 2,000 cars driving around the city were removed or more than 80,000 trees were planted.
The factory has an area of 164,000 square meters, of which 24,000 covered by plants, warehouses and other structures and 140,000 square meters of land. In addition to the automated warehouse for incoming raw materials, the site has a warehouse with approximately 3,000 pallet spaces for the management and storage of finished products ready for shipment.