The world's largest pharma company would be roughly doubling the size of its facility by adding 50,000 sq ft. as it actively pushes into the potentially very profitable biologics market.

The investment comes at a time when Pfizer is instigating several cost-cutting strategies as it battles patent expiries, scales back production on lacklustre drugs and faces fierce market competition.

The company has reduced its staff by almost 10,000 - 10 per cent of its global workforce - and shed 20 per cent of its European sales force in an attempt to save over $1bn (€736m) by the end of 2008. Meanwhile, it plans to reduce its number of manufacturing sites from 93 to 48 by the end of next year including the closure of five research and development (R&D) sites and the relocation of projects amongst remaining facilities and external sites.

But in the midst of the cost-cutting strategies, the drug giant is moving head strong into biologics, with the aim to have 20 per cent of its pipeline product portfolio in the sector by 2009.

"It's a growing area," Pfizer associate director of public affairs Ed Bryant said in an interview.

"What these medicines do is they offer some very unique ways to target disease."

Since the acquisition of Pharmacia and the Chesterfield facility in 2003/2004, Pfizer has stressed its plans to build a major presence in biotherapeutics, with investing in businesses such as biologics and vaccines stated as the company's "third prong" in its business development strategy.

Although there are currently 14 biologic compounds in the company's public pipeline, Dr BJ Bormann, head of worldwide strategic alliances for the pharma giant, told delegates at the recent drug Discovery and Development of innovative Therapeutics (DDT) conference in Boston, US, that, over the last 10 years, Pfizer has gone from having one biologic to 25 in the pipeline and these include monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), small interfering RNA (siRNA) drugs, vaccines and aptamers.

She pointed out that at the moment, the company only has one biologic on the market but that its first mAb, which targets CTLA-4 as an anti-cancer treatment, is due to be launched "in the next year."

In the past three years the firm has spent $6.7bn in acquisitions as it expands "aggressively" into biologics, including the aquisitions last year of PowderMed, a UK company specialising in DNA-based vaccines for influenza and chronic viral disease, and Rinat, a biologics company focusing on central nervous system drug candidates.

According to Pfizer's 2006 annual report, the company intends to increase resources dedicated to biotherapies with the objective of launching one product per year within 10 years, while strengthening their antibody platform and building up the vaccine business.

The Chesterfield expansion, which would be primarily for R&D, would meet the anticipated demand for the number of candidates going into clinical trials, Bryant said.

The facility is the only plant Pfizer owns for the production of large quantities of biologics for clinical trials; although it does also have a manufacturing agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim.

Bryant said it was possible that future construction of facilities may be required for commercial scale production of biologics should they enter the market.

Construction is expected to start soon with the completion date set for the end of 2009 and operations to start mid-2010.

Last week, sister site In-PharmaTechnologist.com reported the premature announcement that Pfizer had been awarded a contract to build a biotech production plant in Ireland.

Rumors emerged in May that Pfizer was possibly planning a new biologics facility in the Emerald Isle but at the time the company would only say the plans were at a very early stage and yet to be approved internally - although the company did admit that it had applied for planning permission at the site in Shanbally. Last week Pfizer continued to claim the plans had still not been finalized.

Biologics is considered the fastest growing area in the pharmaceutical industry with some suggestions that biologics could make up 60 per cent of pharmaceutical companies' revenues by 2010. Already the market is worth more than $56bn.

While Bormann asserted that Pfizer is "still in stealth mode with respect to biologics", all that looks set to change in the near future.