Cayce, SC 01/03/2022 (Paul Kirby) – Nephron Pharmaceuticals continues to grow and serve the healthcare needs of the country from its fast-expanding campus in Lexington County’s Saxe Gotha Industrial Park near Cayce. In December of 2016, Lou and Bill Kennedy, Nephron’s co-founders, announced that they were relocating the businesses’ headquarters from Orlando, Florida to Cayce. At that time, CEO Lou Kennedy told the Orlando Business Journal, “South Carolina is very pro-manufacturing jobs and focused on workforce development. That’s good for business.” That move was completed in early 2017.
When Nephron landed in Lexington County, they manufactured generic respiratory medications and shipped approximately 90-million-doses each month. Their focus was on about 125 varieties of these type of drugs. When they moved, they were expected to create roughly 700 high paying jobs in the Midlands. Since that time, they have not only met but by far exceeded their goals for hiring and have been continually expanding and adapting to meet the current healthcare needs of the country.
Now, according to an article by Jessica Holdman with the Charleston based Post and Courier news, since early 2020, Nephron has invested $215 million in infrastructure and facilities as they continue to expand in Lexington County’s Saxe Gotha Industrial Park. According to Holdman’s article, in just the past month, the company hired 1,500 new part-time workers as it ramps up production of new product lines. According to CEO Lou Kennedy, this brings Nephron’s workforce to 1,200 full-time, and 2,500 part-time employees.
Lou Kennedy is one of the nation’s leading proponents of the Made in America movement, especially as that pertains to drugs and other critical medical supplies. Nephron still makes the inhalation drug doses as a part of its core business model but has expanded greatly, especially in response to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Since this virus overtook the globe, Nephron has responded by expanding into the manufacture of hand sanitizer, nitrile exam gloves, and rapid COVID testing kits. Now, according to Holdman’s article, CEO Lou Kennedy says that Nephron is also poised to begin making chemotherapy drugs and a number of antibiotics. “I’m really excited about that move because it’ll allow us to get into those three drug categories,” Kennedy told Holdman during a recent interview.
Kennedy says she got the idea to expand and make Nephron a key player in bringing medical manufacturing back onshore after Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) visited the Lexington County facility in 2020. Since hearing Graham’s thoughts on the need to break the country’s dependency on foreign drug manufacturers, she and her husband and co-founder Bill have literally invested hundreds of millions into making that happen.
During an event held last summer where they announced the building of the production line for Nephron Nitrile, the PPE gloves so desperately needed in healthcare worldwide, SC Governor Henry McMaster said, “It is critical that South Carolina lead the charge in bringing the production of life-saving medications and supplies back home to the United States.” The Kennedys and Nephron have led the way in that endeavor producing more and more healthcare necessities in the United States. Once the nitrile glove line is completed and in operation, Lou Kennedy said they expect to produce 3 billion gloves or more annually.
Kennedy is such a believer in the Made in America concept, she has worked diligently with other South Carolina and U.S. business CEOs to purchase as many American made products and machinery as possible as Nephron expands its porcesses. During the Nephron Nitrile event, Kennedy pointed out that the hand molds that are being used in the nitrile glove manufacturing process are made by a South Carolina company based in the upstate.
Toward the end of the Nephron Nitrile announcement, Kennedy teased Lexington County councilmembers in attendance telling them that if her plans for growth continued to forge ahead, she might soon approach them about the need for another tract of land that was open in the Saxe Gotha Park. It seems as if Kennedy was serious about that as she adeptly steers the company on the fast track of growth. Now, according to the Post and Courier article, she’s once again expanding Nephron’s capabilities by beginning to make something Nephron uses daily that had to be imported up until this point.
In the future, Nephron will manufacture an integral part of its own end-use medical products, syringes. She’s calling the spinoff Inject EZ. Kennedy told Holdman, “Right now we’re buying our syringes from either Switzerland or Germany. We’re going to open our own company where we’re going to make our own syringes, rubber stoppers and plungers,” she continued. “I’ve got a few other tricks up my sleeve,” Kennedy said. “We expect to announce some future expansion as soon as we’ve finished all of these projects.”
As Nephron races into the future with Kennedy at the helm, most who know her don’t expect her to slow down anytime soon. Her passion for the industry and her faith in the ability of American to once again be the world’s manufacturing leader grows stronger by the day.
To read Jessica Holdman’s article in the Post and Courier follow this link: SC pharma company continues expansion in Lexington County. To apply for a job with Nephron, follow this link: Nephronpharm.com/careers
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