Meeting the demand for Coartem®
The complex process of Coartem® manufacture
Producing Coartem® and other ACTs is complicated and time-consuming. It takes 10 months to produce artemether, including planting and harvesting, and extracting the active substance. With a further four months to produce, package and ship Coartem® tablets, it takes a minimum of 14 months from starting production to delivery of the final medication.
Surging demand met by swift expansion
At the time of their ground-breaking agreement in 2001, Novartis and the WHO estimated that demand for Coartem® would not exceed 2.5 million treatments per year within the next five years. During 2005-2006, however, demand for Coartem® rocketed and reached a total of 62 million treatments in 200664.
In 2005, Novartis responded by scaling up Coartem® production with a speed and size that was virtually unprecedented in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly for a not-for-profit making therapy. The company and its partners invested more than US$50 million in manufacturing plants and equipment during the year, and artemisinin production in China and Africa was expanded. In addition, Novartis opened up Coartem® production for the first time at a factory in Suffern, New York, to supplement output from the company’s Beijing plant.
To secure larger supplies of raw materials, Novartis, working in partnership with the Advanced Bioextracts Company in Kenya, encouraged African farmers to grow high-quality Artemisia annua plants. Novartis also increased the number of strategic suppliers of artemisinin in China. From 4 million treatments delivered in 2004, 66 million were delivered in 2007 – a 16-fold increase in three years. Over 280 million Coartem® treatments so far have been delivered to developing countries in Africa, South-East Asia and other countries around the world.
Novartis increased deliveries of Coartem® by 680% from 2005 to 2006*
* Production increased from 9 million treatments in 2005 to 62 million in 2006
