Month: April 2020

Though commercial air travel has come to a screeching halt worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE) has seen a steady flow in air shipments. Local manufacturer Nephron Pharmaceuticals and international cargo carrier UPS have played a major role in CAE’s success.

To support the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Nephron Pharmaceuticals added hand sanitizer, drugs for respiratory inhalation therapy and neutralizers to their existing production portfolio. In March, the pharmaceutical company shipped over 25,000 pieces from CAE to hundreds of hospitals across the nation.

“Team Nephron has been working overtime to deliver life-saving respiratory medications to patients around the country, including solutions that treat symptoms of COVID-19,” Nephron CEO and owner Lou Kennedy said. “The only way we have been able to meet the demands of increased orders is by working together with partners like UPS and CAE. We are grateful for our partners, and we are grateful for the opportunity to play an important role in the nation’s response to the pandemic. We cannot overstate how important the local UPS hub is to our business. Having them based out of Columbia Metropolitan Airport, our local airport, is instrumental to the sustainability of our healthcare operation.”

With a manufacturing parent, Nephron Pharmaceuticals plans to launch a new product this year which will ship directly to patients around the U.S. The project will commence in September and is slated for 200,000 monthly shipments by May 2021. UPS small package air service will be mostly utilized for this service out of CAE.

UPS is increasing the number of company-owned and chartered air freighter flights during April by more than 185 in response to customer orders. The company is optimizing capacity to meet soaring customer demand to ship test kits, personal protective equipment and other supplies necessary to the global COVID-19 response effort.

“We understand the important role of logistics during a global crisis like the coronavirus,” said Dan Gagnon, vice president of UPS Healthcare Marketing. “In times like these, we are all the more proud to support healthcare organizations like Nephron and deploy our capabilities to help get much-needed medicines, equipment and supplies into hospitals and clinics where they can save lives.”

CAE has consistently been a top producing cargo hub within South Carolina and the nation. Additional information on CAE’s partnership with Nephron Pharmaceuticals and UPS can be found at flycae.com

To read this entire story, visit ColaDaily.

WASHINGTON – Achieving a longtime bipartisan priority for South Carolina elected officials — securing federal funding to provide more reliable internet access in remote rural areas across the state — is taking on new urgency amid the coronavirus crisis.

And with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., turning to negotiations on the next, massive funding bill to help people and the economy withstand the burden of the pandemic, pressure is building on members of the S.C. congressional delegation to fight for more money for rural broadband deployment as a part of that effort.

Lou Kennedy, the CEO of Columbia’s Nephron Pharmaceuticals and an active donor to Republicans statewide and nationally, is using her clout to urge delegation members to take this fight directly to Capitol Hill.

To read the entire story, visit The State.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Governor Henry McMaster announced Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corporation CEO and owner Lou Kennedy as a member of the state’s coordinated COVID-19 advisory and recovery team. The team, a part of accelerateSC, will make recommendations regarding economic revitalization plans in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic that has closed public and private sector institutions.

“I am ready to work with Governor McMaster to get South Carolina moving again,” said Kennedy. “We will strike the right balance between saving lives and saving livelihoods, and serve as a model for our neighbors.”

Nephron develops and produces safe, affordable generic inhalation solutions and suspension products that can be used to treat symptoms of COVID19. In addition, the company operates an industry-leading 503B Outsourcing Facility division which produces pre-filled sterile syringes and IV bags for hospitals across America, in an effort to alleviate their drug shortage needs.

Recognizing the impact of COVID-19’s impact to South Carolina’s economy, Gov. McMaster created accelerateSC, a coordinated economic revitalization plan involving small and large business leaders, healthcare professionals, local government officials, and education professionals. 

The plan consists of five components of analysis and effort: Response, Protection, Governance, Resources, and Information. James Burns, a partner at the law firm of Nelson, Mullins, Riley and Scarborough, will serve as accelerateSC’s executive director. Burns and the rest of the membership are serving in a voluntary capacity. For further information about accelerateSC and its members, visit the governor’s website.

Gov. McMaster and Lt. Governor Pamela Evette will attend and lead the first meeting of accelerateSC on Thursday of this week. Additional details will be announced at a later date.

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On Thursday, four gigantic containers of automated packaging equipment arrived at Nephron Pharmaceuticals’ West Columbia headquarters from Switzerland.

On Monday, the sterile respiratory medication manufacturer is expecting air delivery of critical supplies from Italy, one of the countries hardest-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You know how difficult that was to pull off?” Nephron president and CEO Lou Kennedy said.

Making such logistical feats easier, Kennedy said, have been the efforts of the S.C. Ports Authority.

Kennedy developed a working relationship with the port as she moved hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment from Florida to West Columbia when Nephron relocated to South Carolina in 2014. During her time as chair of the S.C. Chamber of Commerce from 2018-19, Kennedy came to know S.C. Ports CEO Jim Newsome and COO Barbara Melvin well.

Expecting Thursday’s shipment of automated equipment to help Nephron workers quickly label, package and ship products such as the inhalation solutions and bronchodilators the company makes, Kennedy called Melvin.

“I reached out to see what the situation was going to be like in getting these pieces of equipment,” she said. “That equipment, which was four giant containers, arrived to the dot at 9 a.m. (Thursday) morning all because of two great South Carolina partners — UPS and its hub that’s located one exit from me, and the Ports Authority.

“All of these drugs that are packaged will go to benefit speedier to-market products for patients with COVID-19. … This is front-line equipment that we need to get our products to market quicker.”

Such smooth logistical sailing is helping Nephron meet unprecedented demand during the new coronavirus pandemic.

Kennedy said March saw a 141% increase in the doses of inhalation solutions Nephron typically produces a month.

“We went from a regular month of about 80 million shipped to 193 million shipped in March. That’s just for the respiratory side,” she said. “For our sterile injectable medications that we make for all the hospitals in America that have drug shortage needs, that was up by like 22%. We’re seeing the same exact trend in April.”

Nephron is also gearing up to begin releasing 100-mL saline bags for administration of sodium chlorine. The minibags, made scarce after the 2017 hurricane season hit manufacturer Baxter Healthcare hard, are once again in short supply, Kennedy said.

“We are very happy to say that we’ve been producing 100-mL saline for the last two weeks in anticipation for this going on shortage,” said Kennedy, who said the bags would be released Friday.

To help keep up with the increased production, Kennedy has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to add up to six production lines, brought to South Carolina from Florida in 2019. Kennedy first made the request last month and said the agency has been working to respond quickly.

“We sent the last information request to the agency (Thursday),” Kennedy said. “They now have X number of days to review that. They did grant me what is called a CBE-30, which means Change Being Effected. That’s giving you a goal date of 30 days or less to review your material and be able to say yes or no.

“That’s really something. You’ve just got to know and feel good as a patient or a potential patient in America that the FDA has been working with me on the phone almost every day, or by email, trying to get this through expeditiously so that we can crank up a few more lines. As much as we can make, we’re selling. I don’t want to get behind. So if we can get these other lines approved pretty quickly, then we’ll be able to pump out — if I get four lines, at least another 50 million a month. We’re just going to wait and see what the agency allows.”

While Nephron has ramped up production in response to previous respiratory illnesses such as SARS and H1N1, Kennedy said the COVID-19 crisis is unlike anything she’s ever seen. Nephron began making its own hand sanitizer last month, distributing 50 liters to the William Jennings Bryan Dorn Veteran Affairs Center.

“I had absolutely no idea we’d reach these levels. I couldn’t even imagine, can’t even imagine, still am trying to process,” Kennedy said. “One particular day, two or three weeks ago, one hospital system in New York ordered 3,000 nebulizers from us. A typical thing might be 50, no more than 100. They ordered 3,000.”

S.C. Ports and other transportation partners have helped Nephron fill the exploding demand, Kennedy said, while Nephron workers are proud to be playing a role in combating the virus.

“I couldn’t even begin to compare ourselves with what they’re doing at hospitals, but there is a true sense of patriotism,” she said. “People are coming to work optimistic in the fact that they’re helping, in their own small way, American patients.”

Reach Melinda Waldrop at 803-726-7542.

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