HollisterStier adds second shift

Increasing workloads at Spokane’s HollisterStier Laboratories will force the North side manufacturer to add a second production shift this fall — the first extra shift in the company’s long history.

Company officials Wednesday said they’ve hired 21 technicians to start a second production shift beginning in September. That shift, from 4 p.m. to midnight, will include about 10 packagers, said Communication Manager Janelle Jovick.

Founded in the 1920s originally to produce allergy drugs and allergy treatments, privately held HollisterStier now generates 60 percent of its revenue though mixing, filling, compounding and providing other services to pharmaceutical companies.

Contract manufacturers like HollisterStier, in effect, are the outsourcers that make pill, injectables and freeze-dried compounds for larger firms like MGI Pharma and Abbott. The total U.S. market for outsourced pharmaceutical contract manufacturing is around $85 billion, industry analysts estimate.

HollisterStier is also the contract filling company for the U.S. government’s ongoing distribution of millions of vials of anthrax vaccine used by the military.

Continuing demand by those customers has maxed out HollisterStier’s North Spokane capacity, said Jovick. The company has set aside about $40 million in capital spending over the next two years to double capacity and prepare for future growth, said Jovick.

About $16 million of the capital investment this year is for the purchase of seven acres of adjoining land and beginning work on a second production line for contract work, said Jovick.

HollisterStier this year also added a second lyophilizer — a special freeze dryer used in producing drug products. It won’t be operational until 2007.

The additional $24 million in upgrades will be spent in 2007 as the company continues managing and anticipating future contract work, said company CEO Anthony Bonanzino.

HollisterStier has about 380 workers and is projecting adding 40 to 50 workers each year for the next three years.

As a private company, HollisterStier doesn’t release annual revenue totals.

HollisterStier’s workforce has grown to 375 and will hit 400 by the end of 2006, said Jovick, who added that company officials have mulled the idea of a second shift for a period of time,

“We plan on keeping it as long as there is customer demand,” she said, adding, “HollisterStier is pleased with the opportunity to offer our customers a variety of scheduling options.”