Our booming drug manufacturing industry

DYK that all of the Blow Fill Seal respiratory products in the U.S. are made in the Midlands?

In fact, the local biotech industry is pretty substantial – it’s made up of several big industry players like our partner Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation – making an $11.4 billion economic impact on our area.

Hold up – what’s Blow Fill Seal (BFS) technology? ➡️ It’s a totally sterile way of packaging drugs via an aseptic process of ✔️ forming a container, ✔️ filling it with product + ✔️ sealing it, all in one fell swoop, without any human interaction (a.k.a. no contamination). Nephron can make 29,000 vials of drugs per hour, per machine with BFS = over 1 billion doses per year (making them the largest BFS manufacturer in America + second largest in the world).

Watch how it works. 👇

What kinds of drugs? A lot. ➡️ Mostly generic respiratory medications, shipped straight to hospitals, retail pharmacies + various other customers. All of the liquid respiratory medicines come in a vial, are put into a nebulizer device and come out as a *super fine mist*. (Nephron patented MicroVapor Devices and the super nifty Pocket Neb™, a portable, mini nebulizer they launched in the U.S. this past April.)

Most of these drugs are used to treat asthma + COPD. DYK COPD is the third leading cause of death in the U.S.? We see you, World COPD Day (Nov. 15).

Fun fact: Nephron’s respiratory drugs were used during the H1N1 outbreak. Well, maybe not so fun during the great swine flu pandemic of 2009. They’re also the only manufacturer of Racemic Epinephrine in the world.

And instead of just making drugs + takin’ money, Nephron gives a ton back to our community. CEO Lou Kennedy co-established the Kennedy Pharmacy Innovation Center (KPIC) at UofSC for use by pharmacy students through a $30 million dollar donation (the second-largest gift UofSC has ever received). She also serves on the Midlands Business Leadership Group (MLBG), which works with EngenuitySC to tackle challenges + initiatives surrounding talent, entrepreneurship, innovation, industry clusters + livability in the Midlands.

STEAM education is really important to Nephron, as well – they give at least 2-3 educational tours of their facility per month. And you can find a Nephron sponsorship logo on about any given charitable or education-based event in Cola, any time of the year.

Where is all this produced? ➡️ In Nephron’s HQ at 4500 12th Street Ext., West Columbia. To give you an idea of the size of this place:

Roof is the size of 4.5 football fields
500,000+ sqft. of drywall was used to build walls
6 miles of PVC was installed for irrigation system
8 acres of sod used for landscaping
3,300 trucks of concrete used to build the building (= 33,000 cubic yards)

Don’t do drugs, girls and boys – unless they’re legal + prescribed.

–Chloe + Sam