Laboratorios Farmacéuticos ROVI, S.A. (hereinafter “ROVI”), a specialised pan-European biopharmaceutical company engaged in research, has completed the work on its new plant in Escúzar (Granada) with the expansion of the existing facilities by 1,620 square metres and the inclusion of a new sodium heparin production line. With this operation, in which ROVI has invested an additional 11 million euros, the company continues to advance in the vertical integration strategy for its low-molecular-weight heparin (hereinafter, “LMWH”) franchise. Furthermore, the expansion of the Escúzar facilities is expected to create 15 new jobs, which would raise the total number of employees at these facilities to around 60.
Miguel Ángel Ortega Sánchez, ROVI’s Industrial Manager, said: “At ROVI, we are very proud to announce the completion of the work to expand our new plant in Escúzar, since it reinforces our production capacity significantly and makes our position among the world leaders in the heparin market even stronger.”
Thus, the new Escúzar plant now houses two lines within the LMWH manufacturing process: the production line for the active principle of heparins, which came into operation at the end of 2023 and has a capacity of 673,000 MIU (million international units), equivalent to approximately 134.6 million syringes, and the new sodium heparin production line, with a capacity of 1,200,000 MIU of sodium heparin for 2025, equivalent to 88 million syringes, which has now received authorisation to
commence commercial activity from the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices.
The LMWH production process consists of three purification phases: it starts by obtaining crude heparin from pig mucosa, continues with the transformation into sodium heparin (unfractionated heparin), and concludes when the low-molecular-weight heparins are obtained.
The inauguration of this new sodium heparin facility represents a further step in the vertical integration of ROVI’s LMWH production. It joins the facilities that are being constructed in Fraga (Huesca) for Glicopepton, ROVI’s joint venture with Costa Food Group and Càrniques Celrà for the first part of the production process, and the already-existing LMWH production line in Escúzar.
With this strategy, ROVI continues to reinforce the guarantee, autonomy and visibility of the production of heparins, a product classified as essential by the European Union and the World Health Organisation and also a strategic business segment for ROVI, in which the company aspires to become a global industry leader.