Pharmavite, maker of vitamins and nutritional supplements, is expanding its Santa Clarita operations.
The company, which sells its products under the Nature Made brand name, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday on a new 229,000 square-foot facility on Witherspoon Parkway in the Valencia Commerce Center.
“This move and our new 15-year lease represents a deep commitment to our employees’ well-being, and to remaining a key employer in the Santa Clarita Valley for the long-term,” said Brett Buatti, vice president of operations.
The facility will consolidate two current Santa Clarita Pharmavite operations into a single location, streamlining the company’s supply chain, logistics and distribution. The building will house their Nature Made vitamin and nutritional supplements, raw materials and intermediate bulk, as well as finished goods, when their move is complete in mid-2018.
It will complement their packaging operation located just down the street on Witherspoon, greatly improving materials access, production time and operational efficiencies. The company will also be making infrastructure and equipment investments to its current packaging facility. The new lease consolidates the company’s West Coast distribution, customer service, and warehousing operations under one roof for improved efficiencies.
“Right now we’ve got facilities on Livingston Ave. and on Avenue Tibbets, and we’re quite fragmented,” said Luke Dorsett, Pharmavite’s director of engineering. “This consolidation will make our operations much more efficient by bringing different facets of our supply chain into one facility.”
“This new building provides state-of-the-art technology connectivity and infrastructure, a more efficient working environment, critical safety equipment, and complete amenities for our staff,” Buatti said. Once all operations are moved, the company will run four shifts Monday through Saturday and one shift on Sunday, with approximately 175 employees.
“Pharmavite’s long-term commitment to the Santa Clarita Valley is another strong sign of our vibrant business environment, and brings good jobs to our business-friendly and family-friendly community,” said Holly Schroeder, president and CEO of the Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation.
Valencia Commerce Center was developed by Newhall Land starting in the early 1990s, in the northwest quadrant of the intersection of Interstate 5 and Route 126. Built on 1,200 acres, it currently contains nine million square feet of industrial space with capacity for an additional three million square feet.
Pharmavite LLC is one of the larger employers in the Santa Clarita Valley, with more than 350 employees. The company, based in Northridge, was founded in 1971 by a California pharmacist, Barry Pressman. Since 1989, it has been a unit of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. It launched the Nature Made line in 1990.
Otsuka is a Tokyo-based international manufacturer and distributor of pharmaceuticals, clinical testing equipment, medical device and equipment, food products, cosmetics, and other related products. Otsuka Pharmaceutical is a subsidiary of Otsuka Holdings, which has 45,000 employees. The company had sales of about $11 billion in 2016.
