Aphena Expands DEA Packaging Capabilities in Maryland and Tennessee

Aphena Pharma Solutions Inc. has expanded its DEA operations and storage in both its Maryland and Tennessee manufacturing locations.

Aphena’s liquid and semisolids division in Easton, Maryland, has expanded both the CII vault capacity and the DEA-licensed CIII-CV cage to hold more than 85 pallets of active products. The company has also expanded its solid-dose division in Cookeville, Tennessee, in response to the growing market demand for CII packaging. The new expansion in Tennessee will increase the location’s CII capacity to over 110 pallets for blisters, bottles, carding or kit packaging.

Eric Allen, Aphena’s VP of sales and marketing, explains the company’s investment, which reflects “Aphena’s commitment to continue to provide our customers a growing contract partner with the broadest ranges of capabilities. We have provided packaging services for liquids and semisolids for over a decade. The recent expansion at our Maryland and Tennessee facilities provides additional services to our customers as well as increased flexibility to handle a wider range of products and packaging formats.”

The Easton, Maryland, liquid and semisolid plant now includes more than 12 custom packaging lines, with additional blending equipment already on the drawing board for 2019.

Aphena’s solid-dose packaging site in Cookeville, Tennessee, now has four blister lines and six bottling lines. Aphena also has four lines running pallet level serialized, with three more being installed to meet the new DSCSA regulations for pharmaceutical products in November 2018.

Customers can now work with Aphena for DEA CII-V solutions for solid dose, liquids, creams, lotions, powders, pouches, blisters, bottles, vial labeling/packaging and kitting across two divisions — the solid dose division in Tennessee and the liquids and topicals division in Maryland. This is the widest variety of packaging formats available from one single CMO source in pharma.

“Our customers can continue to enjoy the benefits of diverse manufacturing and packaging capabilities from a single company,” said Allen.