J&J commits five-year investment in Italian medicine manufacturing

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is planning to invest a total of €580 million in Italy over the next five years. A portion of the investment, €125 million, is intended to support greater production capacity at its Latina site, which is a key part of the firm’s worldwide supply chain network, the company stated.

For example, the plant produces over four billion tablets every year, spanning approximately 30 different products, J&J confirmed.

Increasing production capacity with advanced technology

“The Johnson & Johnson site in Latina, Italy, is undergoing a significant evolution as we enhance our capabilities to serve more patients with innovative products. It has been designated as a 4IR (Industry 4.0 site) by the World Economic Forum due to our commitment to innovation and sustainability,” explained Jorge Lopez, General Manager of the Johnson & Johnson Latina Plant.

Lopez told EPR that J&J “are building capabilities for the future by investing in technology and in our workforce to ensure we remain resilient to reliably and efficiently supply our innovative medicines”.

Production capacity is expected to increase over 25 per cent because of the financing, J&J reported.

“These new technologies will enable us to be more agile and efficient at the site by improving how we manage the packaging of small production batches and reducing end-to-end manufacturing time by performing certain processes simultaneously rather than in sequence,” Lopez continued.

He highlighted that a key challenge J&J faced when incorporating the planned new production technologies was to upskill its employees “to ensure we had the capabilities to not only identify opportunities for innovation but also implement solutions”.

Driving innovation

This is because “we are driving innovation directly rather than buying an off the shelf product,” he explained. For example, Lopez added that this is being done by developing new automated and data-driven processes to enhance efficiency and speed.

“We trust that innovation will continue to be welcomed and properly recognised, that the clinical trials ecosystem will improve and get faster and that constructive dialogue between institutions and the industry – already opened by the Government – continues and remains open,” commented Mario Sturion, Managing Director of Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine Italy.

“Growth [of investments in Italy for research and innovation] is 60 percent driven by foreign companies and allows the local supply chain to grow and promotes its internationalisation,” stated the Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso.

Advancing targeted treatments for multiple myeloma