The announcement follows an $80 million investment by AstraZeneca in four specialised production lines at its North Ryde, Sydney plant to cater for demand from China for respiratory medicine Pulmicort Repsules.
AstraZeneca has been licensed by the Chinese government as the global sole supplier of Pulmicort Repsules to China, where the pharmaceutical is used to treat a proportion of China’s seven million asthma sufferers.
AstraZeneca director of manufacturing and supply Stuart Anderson told ProPrint that the investment in AstraZeneca Australia’s manufacturing operations represents the company’s long-term ambition to become a centre of excellence for high-tech production as an export hub to Asia.
"Our partnership with Colorpak is an important relationship in delivering the 500% growth of exports that we will experience to China by 2015," said Anderson.
Colorpak has been contracted by AstraZeneca since 2000 when the company acquired Hale Foldpack in Sydney, which had a relationship with the pharmaceutical giant dating back some 30 years.
Colorpak will continue to serve AstraZeneca from its dedicated pharmaceutical packaging site in Regents Park, NSW.
In June, Colorpak announced plans to consolidate its NSW operations by closing Villawood folding carton plant and relocating it to its nearby Regents Park site. The company has leased a nearby site to house its flexible packaging operations, which it expects to be operational by February 2013.
Pharmaceutical packaging represents 27% of Colorpak’s nearly $200 million of annual sales. The company has had a strong focus on pharmaceutical packaging for the past decade and has grown strongly through acquisition.
"We’ve done [pharmaceutical packaging] for a long time and we’ve been audited for many years, which has kept us at the top of our game," said Colorpak managing director Alex Commins. "It’s work that Colorpak does well and this contract is testament to this."
Colorpak completed its acquisition of Carter Holt Harvery (CHH) in March 2012 and said the takeover puts it in the number one position in the Australian folding carton industry.
The $5 million acquisition almost tripled its market share from 11.2% to 31% to and includes all but one of CHH's sites in Australia and New Zealand. The Smithfield site went to rival Amcor.
The cost of the merger and restructuring hit Colorpak hard in its 2011-12 results, with a $3.2 million loss.
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