source: Post and Courier Columbia
WEST COLUMBIA — A Lexington County drug maker has cut the ribbon on its latest venture — a medical glove plant.
Nephron Nitrile, an offshoot of Nephron Pharmaceuticals, celebrated the opening Dec. 7, some 17 months after announcing it would make nitrile gloves, known for being more durable and less likely to trigger allergic reactions than traditional latex, in Lexington County’s Saxe Gotha Industrial Park.
On hand were the governor, lieutenant governor, several state agency heads, state and local politicians, college and university presidents and University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley.
As Nephron CEO Lou Kennedy spoke, videos played of 13,000 hand-shaped molds dipping in and out of vats that hold the chemicals needed in the gloves’ production.
Only the plant’s first manufacturing line is operational. Eventually the plant will have 14 lines churning out the protective gloves, Kennedy said.
When fully operational, the plant will have the capacity to produce 2.1 billion gloves per year, Kennedy told the crowd. It will employ some 250 workers, the company said when the plant was first announced.