TAKEDA MANUFACTURING PLANT WILL INCREASE U.S. VITAMIN C PRODUCTION BY 40%

TAKEDA MANUFACTURING PLANT WILL INCREASE U.S. VITAMIN C PRODUCTION BY 40% when it comes on stream in 1989, Takeda noted in a recent release announcing the opening of Midwest and West Coast sales offices. The $90 mil. vitamin C plant, now under construction, will be Takeda's second at its Wilmington, N.C. site. Takeda's first U.S. plant has been producing vitamin B[1] since the fall of 1985. Explaining its reasons for opening new sales offices in Highland Park, Ill. and Newport Beach, Calif., Takeda said that the acquisition last October of Fallek Chemical Company's domestic vitamin and nutritional supplement business has "greatly expanded" Takeda's product line in the U.S. The line expansion is "for the food, pharmaceutical and other industries," Takeda noted. With the Fallek purchase, Takeda acquired a marketing force for its expanding line of bulk vitamin products and tablet excipients. Takeda bought Fallek's food ingredients division in April. Piece by piece Takeda is putting together a corporate infrastructure in the U.S. Separate from Takeda U.S.A.'s bulk vitamin and nutritional product marketing, the Japanese company also has a 50% stake in a Rx pharmaceutical development and marketing arm via its TAP Pharmaceuticals joint venture with Abbott. TAP is marketing Lupron (leuprolide), the firm's first Rx product in the U.S., via its own detail force. Lupron was approved in April 1985 for prostatic cancer with FDA's 1-B rating, which signifies the agency's belief that the drug represents a modest improvement over existing treatments. In the pipeline, TAP has three compounds pending FDA approval: two cephalosporin antibiotics -- Cefmax (cefmenoxime) and Cefonomil (cefsulodin) -- and the sedative estazolam.