Pharmaceutical manufacturing

Pills, capsules and suppositories

Our company manufactures non-liquid pharmaceuticals on two sites: Debrecen and Gödöllő. The types of products made include film-coated and non-coated tablets, hard and soft gelatine capsules, suppositories and sachets.  In one year, as many as 800 different products may roll off the production lines; production is increasing from year to year – in fact, the quantity of non-liquid pharmaceuticals manufactured has grown ten times over during the past 10 years.  This spectacular growth has been supported by investments to increase capacity, product transfers and successful projects to increase efficiency.  We will be doing our best to maintain this pace of growth in future years, while continuing to meet the heightened pharmaceutical safety standards required by the authorities.

Teva builds a new factory unit in Debrecen (Debrecen's story)

Sterile solutions for infusion, injectables

The sterile pharmaceutical production carried out at Gödöllő is playing an increasing important role within the Teva group.  In addition to manufacturing two types of products (injectables, infusion solutions), the Sterile Pharmaceutical Production Division also carries out vital development work.  There are some 350 staff involved in development; 10 per cent are graduates and the majority are qualified technicians. Aseptic pharmaceutical manufacturing was developed into a complex technical field in the 1980s and free available capacities attracted multi-national companies.

Going back to basics

One of the most dynamically developing activity of our company is manufacturing active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). This is apparent not only from the fact that the number of employees in this area has doubled, but also from the significant growth in terms of quantities  sales, research and development and the number of engineering projects.  Currently, almost half of the people working at the Debrecen manufacturing facility (more than 600 people) are involved in manufacturing API-s.  The Hungarian API-manufacturing units (production facilities at Debrecen and Sajóbábony) have become the fermentation centres of Teva; the products from these centres are primarily sold on the American market.  

Special products mean special responsibility

Pharmaceutical industry is a very special type of industry: after all, in contrast with most manufactured products, quality can quite literally be a matter of life and death.  At the same time, the quality of medicines is not immediately obvious to lay persons or consumers.  Medicines have hidden properties which only become manifest to doctors and pharmacists during the course of treatment.  This is the reason why health authorities – bearing in mind the need to protect consumers – lay down very strict and detailed rules for manufacturers; these relate to production, plant, employee training, monitoring, processes and technology and are issued under the title GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice). It is mandatory to comply with them at all times.  The main supporting pillar for compliance is our well-organised quality assurance system; we receive excellent feedback on the high standard of this system during regular inspections by the Hungarian National Institute of Pharmacy.