Bluepharma, a Portuguese pharmaceutical company, has just opened a state-of-the-art industrial unit specialized in the production of oral solid high potent products, namely in the oncology area. The investment amounts to 30 million euros and results in a unique plant in Portugal and one of the largest in Europe for the production of medicines with these specifications. This new unit in Eiras, Coimbra, creates 100 jobs, most of them highly qualified.

The ceremony's launch was attended by several national and international entities and partners, as the Portuguese Minister of Economy and Sea, António Costa Silva, the President of Medicines for Europe, Elisabeth Stampa, and the President of Bluepharma, Paulo Barradas Rebelo.

This production unit materializes the ONConcept® project, which brought Bluepharma together in a partnership with two German companies of reference in the pharmaceutical area - Helm and Welding.

A reliable, flexible, and high-quality European partnership able to serve global markets with differentiated, high-value medicines. This new unit represents an important role to Europe's reindustrialization strategy, while being an important contribution to the sustainability of the health systems and accessibility of life-changing medicines to patients, namely in oncology.

Portugal-based Bluepharma operates as a CDMO with all the capabilities needed to offer an integrated approach from development to commercial manufacturing. Together with the German partners Helm and Welding, the collaboration bundles its scientific and regulatory knowledge, enlarges the API sourcing network, offers its own intellectual property service, strengthens the individual market knowledge and access to realize a strong highly potent products’ portfolio made in Europe.

Currently the ONConcept® project had built a basket of more than 20 products. The composition of the portfolio positions ONConcept® to provide a steady stream of new opportunities to its partners, with some of the molecules open to off-patent competition today and others having LoE dates for later in the decade.

In the coming years, the strategic alliance wants to become known as a reputable European supplier of highly potent products with the capabilities needed to develop, register, and supply complex products, ensuring competitiveness across the product lifecycle.