Nov 23rd -Eisai Co. will start manufacturing drugs in the UK in early 2011

Eisai To Make Aricept Tablets At U.K. Plant

Eisai will produce Aricept tablets in the U.K.

Eisai Co. will use its facility in the U.K. to manufacture the finished tablet formulation of its blockbuster Alzheimer's drug Aricept beginning in early 2011.

To better control production costs after the European patents on Aricept expire in 2012, Eisai will stop outsourcing production and start making the tablets at its strategic European base the firm set up in the U.K. in 2009.

The U.K. location has a manufacturing plant capable of formulating 400 million tablets a year, and it will make Aricept tablets from the bulk active ingredients imported from Eisai's plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

In the future, Eisai will also use its U.K. base to manufacture other finished drugs as a means of controlling costs.