Brookhaven drugmaker Amneal Pharmaceuticals expands workforce, to add 200 jobs
Amneal Pharmaceuticals in Yaphank seen in 2018. Credit: Barry Sloan
A drug manufacturer plans to add 200 jobs to its workforce of 800 people in Brookhaven Town to make medical devices for another company, executives said this week.
Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. will install manufacturing lines in its factory at 50 Horseblock Rd. to produce prefilled drug injection devices for Connecticut-based Apiject Systems Corp.
The production lines would turn out between 250 and 300 million devices per year. Each device consists of a container filled with medicine, a needle, dose window and a protective cover over the needle, the executives said.
Amneal is a public company based in New Jersey with operations in that state, Kentucky, India and Ireland. Amneal has 2,500 employees domestically and until 2023 had a second local facility in Hauppauge where 220 people worked before the COVID-19 pandemic.
State records show that Amneal workers earn $55,000 per year on average.
The production agreement comes one year after Amneal reached a $270 million settlement with New York and five other states over its alleged role in the nationwide opioid epidemic. The company had been accused of not reporting suspicious orders for opioids to federal authorities, Newsday has reported.
The agreement also follows President Donald Trump’s executive order on Monday directing the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to “eliminate regulatory barriers to the domestic production of the medicines Americans need.”
Chirag and Chintu Patel, co-CEOs of Amneal, said the company wants to increase domestic production.
“We believe the country has an opportunity to build a more resilient U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain and to onshore critical drug production, and we are eager to lead that charge,” they said in announcing the agreement.
Apiject CEO and co-founder Jay Walker agreed, saying the agreement with Amneal allows his company “to bring a wide range of critical injectable drugs to the U.S. and global market.”
Apiject co-founder Marc Koska invented the company's drug injection device after spending decades in the developing world trying to prevent deaths from the reuse of contaminated needles.
Amneal will manufacture drugs for the device and then fill the device. Apiject will supply the needle hub assembly, Amneal spokesman Brandon Skop said on Friday.
He also said most of the new jobs in the 600,000-square-foot factory will be in production, engineering, quality control and technology transfer. The company also has a 140,000-square-foot warehouse nearby.
The project is expected to start late next year, Skop told Newsday.
Amneal reported a loss of $117 million last year compared with a loss of $84 million in 2023. The last annual profit was in 2021. Revenue increased 17% last year to $2.8 billion, according to a securities filing.
James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.
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