Actavis Group, the world’s fourth largest generic pharmaceutical company, formally opened a new expansion to its pharmaceutical manufacturing site in Iceland.

Powered solely by geothermal energy, giving it a zero carbon footprint for tablet manufacturing and packaging, the site uses no fossil fuels. The facility is fully accredited to supply the EU market.

The opening ceremony was attended by the President of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson and members of parliament.

Claudio Albrecht, CEO Actavis said, “The site is 100% powered by geothermal energy, and is therefore the most eco-friendly pharmaceutical facility in the world. It meets both the ISO14001 environmental standard and the OHSAS18001 health- and safety standard, reflecting the strong Environment, health and safety commitment of our company. This latest investment increases the production capacity in Iceland by 50%, giving us a significantly increased launch capability for the EU market. This is our principal development and launch site for Europe. We’re proud to be able create jobs in Iceland by expanding this site.”

Following the expansion the production capacity of the Hafnarfjordur, Iceland site is about 1.5 billion tablets, around 96% of which are exported to the European markets. The Group’s investment on the expansion is about EUR 8M.

Actavis operates 14 manufacturing sites in 12 different countries: US, Bulgaria, Iceland, China, Italy, India, Indonesia, Malta, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and the UK. The Group’s total production capacity is the equivalent of about 24bn tablets.