Japanese multinational AGC opens new plant in Catalonia with over €100M investment

​​​​​​​The Japanese chemical-pharmaceutical multinational AGC Pharma Chemicals opened its new production plant on Tuesday in Malgrat de Mar (Barcelona). The company has invested more than 100 million euros in expanding its Catalan facilities, a project that will allow it to increase its capacity to manufacture pharmaceutical active ingredients by 30%. These new facilities cover an area of 7,500 m².

For this expansion project, AGC Pharma received support from ACCIÓ-Catalonia Trade & Investment, along with a grant of 800,000 euros for reindustrialization projects from the Directorate General for Industry.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by the Minister for Business and Labour, Miquel Sàmper; the CEO of AGC Pharma Chemicals, Jun Kurihara; the CTO of AGC Inc, Hideyuki Kurata; the Mayor of Malgrat de Mar, Sònia Viñolas; and the Consul General of Japan in Barcelona, Akiko Shikata.
 

“We are deeply grateful for the support of the institutions and our team, and proud to grow here in Catalonia”

Jun Kurihara, CEO of AGC Pharma Chemicals

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Miquel Sàmper highlighted that “the Catalan Government welcomes the inauguration of AGC’s new plant and its commitment to our region, with this high value-added project in a key sector for the Catalan economy such as chemical-pharmaceuticals, which will undoubtedly contribute to the creation of highly qualified jobs.”

For his part, Jun Kurihara, CEO of AGC Pharma Chemicals, said at the opening ceremony: “This plant is more than a building: it is a symbol of our commitment to health, innovation, and sustainability. With this expansion, we increase our production capacity and strengthen our mission to improve people’s lives through the highest quality pharmaceutical manufacturing. We are deeply grateful for the support of the institutions and our team, and proud to grow here in Catalonia.”

From these new facilities,  the company’s only production center outside Japan,  AGC Pharma Chemicals will focus on the development of active ingredients for complex medicines in oncology and advanced therapies, known as highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPI). With this investment, the company aims to meet the growing demand from the pharmaceutical industry for this type of ingredient.

The Catalan plant covers the full drug development cycle, from initial R&D to commercial manufacturing. Therefore, AGC has all the required facilities and technology to scale up the production of highly potent pharmaceutical ingredients, including advanced reactors ranging from 1.5 to 7.4 m³ and dedicated containment areas for HPAPI.

AGC Pharma Chemicals, part of the Japanese AGC Group, set up operations in Catalonia in 2019 with the acquisition of Boehringer Ingelheim’s plant in Maresme. It currently employs 350 people across manufacturing, laboratories (including R&D), and administrative staff. The AGC Group, with its headquarters in Tokyo, is a global conglomerate of 186 companies operating in more than 30 countries, with over 54,000 employees worldwide and revenues exceeding 12.6 billion euros.