Activase manufacturing "interval"
Executive Summary
Genentech is "maintaining adequate stocks of TPA to meet current demand and to respond to renewed growth in the market for thrombolytic, or clot-dissolving, therapy," the firm said in an Oct. 13 statement explaining its decision to halt production of the drug for the balance of 1988. Genentech said it manufacturers TPA "on a campaign basis" with "intervals scheduled between the manufacture of different products." Genentech's manufacturing plant during the first half of 1988 ran "at a rate considerably higher than matching sales" in order to allow the plant to be available for production of other cell-based products, including the CD4 potential AIDS therapy, the firm maintained. CD4 entered Phase I study in August.