Behind a heavily guarded gate, workers file into a sandstone building that is so nondescript it does not even have a name, only a grid number that marks its place within the sprawling North American headquarters for Bayer Corp.'s pharmaceutical division in West Haven, Connecticut. Bayer officials are loath to divulge even that number out of security concerns.
For it is deep inside this building that workers are quietly making what may be the nation's hottest consumer product: those ubiquitous, oblong Cipro pills being prescribed as the weapon of choice against anthrax.
The raw materials for this powerful antibiotic are being formulated, packaged and shipped out at a rate of nearly 3 million tablets a day, about three times the normal output level, at the only plant in the US making the drug.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the production of Cipro has taken on new urgency as Bayer tries to keep up with a deluge of orders, including 100 million tablets for the US government alone by the end of the year.
Production has been expanded to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some equipment designated for other drugs is now being used solely for Cipro, and several million tablets that were to be used as physicians' samples have been put into bottles for sale. Additional employees have been transferred from other sections at the plant, including some administrative workers who have returned to manufacturing.
The resulting atmosphere is a blend of the secretive and the routine, as the plant churns out the pills amid a host of security precautions.
A reporter and photographer were allowed to take a limited tour of the manufacturing building on Thursday only after submitting a written request that included a list of specific questions to be asked. In addition, a Bayer spokeswoman said that workers had asked not to be identified by full name, or featured in pictures.
Visitors were outfitted in "clean suits," or full-length white jumpsuits, blue booties, hairnets and goggles, to reduce the risk of contaminating production. Then they were escorted through a series of sliding metal doors into windowless rooms with huge steel vats of Cipro pills in various stages of production.
Mary J. Kuhn, vice president of operations, said the drug's active ingredient, ciprofloxacin, is a fine powder that is mixed with other raw materials in a binder solution. The powder is transformed into granules that are then formed into tablets and coated with a white, opaque film to mask the bitter taste.
The Cipro tablets are stored in vats weighing as much as 800lb, and covered with plastic sheets in air-filtered and climate-controlled rooms. Then they are inspected, and later sorted into 100-tablet plastic bottles or foil packaging.
About 200 people are directly involved in making the Cipro, while others provide support services such as inspecting the tablets and answering questions by phone from doctors, pharmacists and other heath professionals.
Since it was first introduced in 1987, Cipro has become Bayer's best-selling drug with roughly US$1.6 billion in sales last year, including US$1 billion in the US alone.
To keep up with the new production schedule, Cipro workers are coming to the plant every day, even on Saturdays and Sundays. But Kuhn said she had heard not one complaint. "They realize the importance of their jobs right now," she said. "It really has given the employees a sense of pride. They're making a product that's saving lives."
For workers such as Mike, a 31-year-old technician, an ordinary job has suddenly been thrust into the national spotlight. He still does the same thing: helping to transform the raw materials into granules and then coating the tablets. Only now, he says, he sometimes wonders where his tablets end up. "I've always been proud of what I do," he said. "But in the past few weeks, I've never been more proud to tell people what I do."
And what did he think of all the fuss over Cipro?
"It's kind of surprising because it's been a part of my vocabulary for so long," he said. "And to see Tom Brokaw shake it is kind of cool."
Ken, 33, a technician who weighs the raw materials, said he felt as if he were serving his country even though he was not on the front lines.
"It makes you feel good inside that, yeah, I produced it," he said. "Basically, our names are on the label."
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