ILC Dover expands production in Mexico

NEWARK- ILC Doverthe engineering, development and manufacturing company announced on Friday that it is investing in a major production expansion in Mexico.

The expansion comes as the company rapidly grows in its new life science focus and enters the sterile liquid handling and chemical content market, officials said. This investment will generate additional production capacity for its solutions for powder storage, storage and transfer of single-use fluids.

ILC has operated a site in Juarez, Mexico, near the Texas border town of El Paso, since 2013. It will add 20,000 square feet of new cleanroom space by the end of this year to support multi- solutions sites for the biotherapy, cell and gene therapy and pharmaceutical markets, officials said. The monetary value of the private company’s investment was not disclosed.

It will continue its manufacturing operations in Delaware, North Carolina, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Switzerland.

“The expansion to Juarez is an investment in our customers’ success and the next step in ILC Dover’s global growth journey. It strengthens our partnership with key pharmaceutical and biotherapeutics customers worldwide, strengthening our ability to expand our presence in critical products for life-saving therapies, improve delivery times and secure our customers’ supply chain by North America,” Corey Walker, CEO of ILC Dover, said in a statement. “Most importantly, this expansion solidifies our position as a valued, vertically integrated partner for our life science customers, helping customers continue to improve and optimize their workflows.

The expansion is one of the first major moves since its CEO reshuffle in November, when Walker, a veteran in life sciences, advanced technologies and applied materials, took charge.

This change capped two years of change at the ILC, which moved its headquarters at the University of Delaware’s STAR campus from its longtime Federica factory in January. New Mountain Capital, a New York-based company with $35 billion in assets under management, acquired ILC in February 2020 as part of a deal with another private equity firm, Behrman Capital.

The new chief executive came to Delaware after working closely with the owner of ILC’s private equity firm, New Mountain Capital, from 2016 to 2020. He was then a senior executive at Avantor, a chemical company and materials headquartered outside of Philadelphia, as executive vice president of the Americas, as well as the global biomaterials and electronic materials businesses.

In December, Walker also oversaw the acquisition of KSE Scientific, a manufacturer of sterile solutions specializing in the production of water for injection (WFI) for the biopharmaceutical, cell and gene therapy, tissue banking and and medical devices. Founded in 2000 and based in Durham, NC, KSE is a leading supplier of sterile consumable products and will continue to operate under its own brand.

“Under the leadership of founder James Lally, KSE has built an exciting platform and shares the culture of ILC Dover by providing consistent, repeatable and high quality service to clients,” Walker said in a statement at the time. “The acquisition accelerates ILC’s trajectory to become a market leader in the biopharmaceutical workflow and I look forward to working with the KSE team to further support the growth of both companies.”