Leading bioscience company, Penn Pharma is commencing construction on a brand new 15,000ft 2-8°C cold storage facility at its GMP Warehouse based in South Wales. The facility, which will be built to the highest specifications, is scheduled to be completed by June 2010.

Equipped with the latest technology, the cold store is powered by an essential services electrical supply with generator back up, and is validated to run on any two of the four available refrigeration units. This will result in 100% back up capacity.

The cold storage unit will be large enough to allow secondary packaging and labelling processes to take place inside. The facility will be continually monitored and alarmed using validated 21 CFR part 11 compliant wireless telemetry.

The construction of the cold store forms part of Penn Pharma’s £12m expansion programme, which has seen the company upgrade the site and improve transport access. Plans for the expansion programme will be rolled out throughout the next five years, with the company aiming to complete upgrades in keeping with its growth.

Paul Thomas, Chief Scientfic Officer & Lead QP at Penn Pharma said: "The significant cold store facility will double our capacity, and will strengthen our position as a leading pharmaceutical company in Wales and worldwide.

"We have heavily invested in the expansion of our Tredegar site, and look forward to our continued growth as a company."

Penn, founded thirty years ago and based at Tredegar for the past twenty three years, is a fully intergrated pharmaceutical company which combines a complete pharmaceutical development service with highly specialised niche & low-volume clinical and commercial manufacturing. The company has achieved very strong growth in recent years, with customers from many of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies in the UK, EU and USA.