Media tours Phl’s biggest pharma plant

Pharmaceutical firm Unilab on Friday gave members of media a tour of its 3,000 square meter — Amherst Laboratories Inc. (Amherst), the largest manufacturing facility of pharmaceutical products in the Philippines.

A subsidiary of the Unilab Group, Amherst is the first manufacturing plant in the country that is both European Union GMP-Certified and Singapore & Malaysia Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Scheme (PIC/s)-Certified.

One of their products is Unilab’s Solmux Advance with Zinc.

During the tour, media members observed how stringent safety and quality assurance protocols are in place to ensure that each Solmux Advance with Zinc bottle provides safe and high-quality cough relief while boosting its ability to provide faster recovery from cough.

To ensure the safety and efficacy of Solmux Advance with Zinc, Unilab Senior Manager for Research and Development Titus Cheng said product development and manufacturing at Amherst follow rigorous quality-controlled processes.

“Starting at R&D, we confer with our Medical Affairs and develop products that have medical significance. Then, when we formulate, we need to do strict testing on chemical, physical, and microbiological properties, using ingredients that we know are safe. We also check stability at different temperatures, dissolution or how a product dissolves and its absorption, safety from microbes, and whether it produces impurities during storage. These are all done to check whether a product will remain stable and effective during its recommended shelf life,” he said.

Highest quality, unmatched efficiency

According to Cheng, the manufacturing process of Solmux Advance follows strict quality controls from start to finish.

Raw materials are properly weighted and combined using state-of-the-art machinery before being manufactured, bottled, labeled, packed, and sent to the high-tech First Pioneer Distribution Inc. (FPDI) facility, where temperature and expiration dates are constantly monitored as the product is prepared for shipping nationwide.

FPDI is equipped with an advanced centralized warehouse management system.

Media guests were also shown the areas where temperatures vary, depending on the specifications needed for various types of medicines.

The sorting of products and packaging based on orders nationwide are equally impressive using a paperless system.

Innovative combination

Dr. Maria Ronilla A. Santos, Medical Affairs Director of Unilab said, “The manufacturing of Solmux Advance with Zinc is very rigorous, following very detailed steps and processes following international standards in the processing of medicines.”

She added that coughs have become more prolonged and severe due to factors such as climate change, air quality, and immunity challenges.

Often taken for granted and left untreated, it needs to be addressed with effective medication that provides faster cough recovery and prevention from spreading.

“Solmux Advance with Zinc has an innovative combination that contains three components to address a more severe and prolonged cough — a mucolytic-antioxidant in Carbocisteine to help liquefy mucus and make it easier to expel, an immunity booster in Zinc, and menthol which provides a soothing effect for the throat.”