Gone are the days of a simple pestle and mortar. A new drug-making factory in Port Elizabeth will open in May, complete with air-locks, depressurised rooms, double-thickness windows, pipes of purified water and gleaming machinery. Built for 150m rand ($23m), and matching European Union standards, it will be capable of doubling the annual output of Aspen Pharmacare to more than 5 billion tablets, mostly generics. Aspen, already Africa's largest drug manufacturer, is growing. On March loth it announced the 270m rand purchase of Fine Chemicals, a firm that makes the raw materials of many medicines in tablet form.
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