Top executives at Jubilant HollisterStier Contract Manufacturing & Services, the longtime drug and allergy product manufacturer located in East Spokane, say the company is poised for a double-digit increase in sales for its current fiscal year as it seeks to capture more customers internationally.

Kevin Garrity, president of Holli-sterStier's allergy products division, says the company recently began to market its line of allergy products in India, the country where its parent corporation, Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd., is based. HollisterStier also has interest in selling that line to potential customers in Asia and South America, he says.

Company CEO Marcelo Morales says, "HollisterStier has been such a domestic player, and now we are gaining brand new market share in this area; it's exciting for this facility."

While Morales declines to disclose the Spokane facility's sales for its most recent fiscal year, he says it experienced single-digit growth from the previous year. Its facility here is located at 3525 N. Regal.

Garrity says another new move for HollisterStier is its decision to distribute its allergy products to customers in Australia and New Zealand directly, instead of through a secondary distributor.

That product line includes liquid sterile injectables and freeze-dried drugs as well as allergenic extracts and allergy testing supplies.

Since HollisterStier was acquired about four years ago by Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd., based in Uttar Pradesh, India, Morales says the parent company has invested a significant amount of capital in research and development to enable the company to capture more market share both domestically and internationally.

"The amount of research and development emphasis in allergy (products) is huge right now," he says.

HollisterStier currently is evaluating a recent development in allergy product manufacturing that's in clinical trials in parts of Europe, Garrity says. That development involves new allergy drugs in the form of dissolvable tablets and liquid drops that have been engineered to provide an alternative to injectable drugs, he says.

He says those drugs could make their way to the states if approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and if that occurred, HollisterStier would be interested in manufacturing such products.

Garrity says the drugs would be similar in nature to fast-dissolving, breath-freshening strips and would deliver allergy medication to patients more conveniently than an injectable drug administered at a medical facility.

Patients could self-administer the drugs, and they especially would benefit people with an aversion to receiving injections via syringe, who could take the medications without as much anxiety, Garrity says.

About two months ago, HollisterStier announced its rebranding from Hollister-Stier Laboratories LLC to Jubilant HollisterStier Contract Manufacturing & Services as part of Jubilant's effort to align the Spokane operations with its Canadian sister company, Montreal-based Draxis Pharma General Partnership. Draxis also now operates as Jubilant HollisterStier.

Morales says that integration allows the North American-based subsidiaries of Jubilant to combine their business processes in information technology, finance, and other operational tasks into one standard system.

"The name Jubilant HollisterStier is reflected in all the company's segments—contract manufacturing and drug manufacturing—to create consistency and to reflect a multi-disciplined life sciences company," Morales adds.

In addition to its Spokane and Montreal facilities, the company has operations in Salisbury, Md., and Bedminster, N.J.

Jubilant has invested significantly over the last several years in improving efficiency at all four facilities, Morales says. He says the shift to the new name won't change any manufacturing processes here, and that HollisterStier will continue to manufacture the allergy products it's known for, as well as do contract manufacturing work for other pharmaceutical companies.

Morales says the company recently has been able to expand its contract work for large international pharmaceutical and biotechnical organizations, although he declines to disclose who those clients are or the size of some of those contracts.

HollisterStier currently employs about 530 people here, and Morales says that its employment has remained mostly steady at that number over the last year.

The company now is seeking to fill seven new and back-filled positions in various areas, including business development, manufacturing, and quality control, as well as several temporary positions, says company spokeswoman Alison Marlin.

Overall, HollisterStier saw a decline in orders over the last year or so, but has been able to mostly retain its staffing levels despite that drop, Morales says.

"We came through the economic challenges well as relating to Spokane," he says. "Both contract and allergy fared well, and we gained market share, and we are well positioned to continue growing."

Morales also says the company is continuing to move into a $42 million addition it completed in early 2008. Part of that roughly 55,000-square-foot-addition houses high-speed sterile fill equipment that allows the company to fill about 75 million vials a year.

HollisterStier annually invests several million dollars in the purchase of new equipment or to obtain FDA and international regulatory approval for the operation of such equipment, Marlin says, adding that such processes can take up to a year.

Earlier this year, HollisterStier received domestic and international approval for the operation of freeze-drying equipment that was installed in 2009 in its clinical trial manufacturing area, she says.

Now the company's allergy products division is accepting clients' clinical trial products that would employ that equipment, and Marlin says that sector of the allergy business is experiencing more activity than what was originally predicted.

Marlin adds that some of the company's job openings involve the operation of some of that recently purchased equipment, as well as outside technicians who would work on the machines.

Morales says another sizable expansion of the company's East Spokane facility is in its long-range plan, but won't be needed for some time as the company hasn't reached full capacity of the space added in 2008, which brought its overall size to about 191,000 square feet of floor space.