Staff Photo by Laura-Chase McGehee/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Area officials tour Chattem's new plant 3 following a news conference Friday.Chattanooga-based Chattem officially opened its new manufacturing plant Friday where it has begun producing its popular Act mouthwash, and could begin producing over-the-counter Allegra within a couple years, plant employees said.
Workers have been told to expect supplies for Allegra, an allergy drug, to start arriving in the first quarter of 2011, employees said during a plant tour for local officials.
The grand opening drew Tennessee Gov.-elect Bill Haslam, Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield and Tom Edd Wilson, head of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.
"Probably 75 percent of new jobs over the next year will come from existing industry," Wilson said.
Chattem has created 70 jobs so far through the new plant on South Broad Street, a number that could double when production ramps up. Chattem will have invested $35 million by the time the plant is running at full capacity, according to Zan Guerry, Chattem's chairman and CEO.
The 84,000-square-foot facility was "built for the future," he said, as a symbol of the "confidence we have in Chattanooga."
That confidence partially stems from the fact that Act mouthwash is growing "four to five times faster than our competitors," Listerine and Scope, he said.
Guerry added that he would continue to consider acquisitions in both the liquid and solid product market, especially products like antacids and cough medicines, as Chattem ramps up capacity at Plant 3.
The plant's assembly line is highly mechanized, with programmable robots that perform most of the tasks required to produce Chattem's liquid products.
One such robot, nicknamed "The Palletizer," fills wooden pallets with 22-pound boxes of mouthwash before wrapping them in plastic wrap and sending them on down the line, a process it can repeat every 10 minutes.
With the coming addition of a second line, the plant will be at 75 percent of capacity, doubling the current daily run of 50,800 bottles of Act.
By adding a second shift, which is already in the works, and adding a second production line, Chattem projects that it could produce up to 50 million bottles of liquid product per year at its new plant, according to Robert B. Long, vice president and CFO.
The company could use additional space to produce Act mouthwash or it could instead add a line to produce Allegra, Long said, if the Food and Drug Administration approves the drug for over-the-counter sale and OKs Plant 3 as a manufacturing location.
Should the FDA approve Chattem's plans to expand production, the company has built the plant with separate weighing and mixing rooms to prevent cross-contamination among products, employees said.
In the meantime, Allegra tablets will be distributed but not manufactured at Plant 3, though in the future "Chattem would look to bring other appropriate products in-house, including Allegra products," Long said.
"We're expecting approval in spring 2011 for over-the-counter use," he said, but wouldn't speculate on when the company expected approval to manufacture the drug at Plant 3, except to say that it should happen within three years.
Contact Ellis Smith at esmith@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6315. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ellisthered.