Plans For New Pharmaceutical Company In Works For W.Va.

The Department of Homeland Security has identified the supply of pharmaceutical drugs to the United States as a critical concern. Much of the prescription generic drug supply is made in foreign countries, raising serious worries about supply chain interruptions.

West Virginia native and entrepreneur Crystal Mersh hopes to help fix that. At Thursday’s 2022 Women’s Leadership Summit at the Greenbrier, Mersh announced the development of a new pharmaceutical company.

“American Medicines Company will provide medicines for the American people for chronic disease,” she said. “Medicines that we take everyday. Things for high blood pressure, for diabetes, for thyroid, for heart disease.”

Mersh explained that the company has been in “stealth mode” for eight months while it worked through regulatory issues. After a 25-year career in the industry, she said some of those issues were a challenge for her and her management team.

“What we’ve been doing the past eight months, is really getting our business plan together, getting our development plan together, and starting pre-formulation development on some of these drugs, working with the different federal agencies on pathways and funding strategies,” she said. “So we’re well on our way. And the next step is to locate a manufacturing site.”

Mersh said the company has looked at a number of potential locations for the facility, but it has several more possible locations to review. She expects to employ between 500 and 600 people in high tech manufacturing jobs when the plant is up and running.

The issue of creating a supply of generic drugs for the American public that can’t be held up with shipping issues or international problems is a serious concern for Mersh.

“These are really medicines that are life sustaining, life extending for the American public,” she said. “And right now, the situation is that the majority of those, and we estimate it to be greater than 95 percent, are manufactured offshore. So we want to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and make American-made medication for Americans.”