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East Rutherford-based Cambrex is making “significant progress” toward its $120 million Midwest expansion. 

The global contract development and manufacturing organization announced March 23 it completed initial engineering studies for an expanded facility in Charles City, Iowa. 

Groundbreaking for the new large-scale active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing plant is scheduled for late 2026. 

The new site will add 140,000 liters of large-scale manufacturing capacity – a 20% increase, Cambrex noted. The project will include: 

• Large-scale and mid-scale reactors 
• Advanced Hastelloy agitated filter dryers 
• Enhancements to existing manufacturing suites 

The expanded facility will support complex chemistry, including controlled substances, highly potent APIs and commercial-scale liquid phase peptide manufacturing. 

The Iowa plant is the nation’s largest independent API manufacturing site, Cambrex CEO Thomas Loewald noted when the company announced the expansion in October 2025. 

Cambrex expects to add at least 30 new positions at the facility, a company representative also told NJBIZ in October. 

Overseas

The company is also investing $30 million to expand its site in Milan, Italy. It expects to complete that project in the second half of 2027. 

Cambrex Chief Operating Officer Claudio Russolo also noted this is the 80th anniversary of production at the Milan site. 

“We are committed to ongoing investments to meet the growing market demand for complex chemistries, including tides, highly potent molecules, and controlled substances,” Russolo added. 

In 2024, the company added more than 150,000 square feet of capacity across its North American and European network. Those projects came as part of a five-year, $100 million investment strategy.