Nexus Pharmaceuticals Inc. plans to complete its nearly $100 million Pleasant Prairie sterile injectables plant in April 2021 and a company executive said it will help address the United States’ reliance on foreign pharmaceutical suppliers magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Privately held Nexus Pharmaceuticals, of Lincolnshire, Illinois, announced in July 2019 that the first phase of its multi-year project would open in 2021 but didn’t specify an opening timeframe. Production should be underway in the facility by early 2022 with 77 employees working there, said chief financial officer Usman Ahmed.

“It’s going good —  so far so good,” Ahmed said of the project.

The three-story, 84,000-square-foot facility is being built in the Prairie Highlands Corporate Park, which is west of Interstate 94 across from LakeView Corporate Park and next to a new Aurora Health Care complex. The total project cost is just under $100 million including construction, real estate and equipment, Ahmed said.

The plant will be Nexus Pharmaceuticals’ first manufacturing facility. The company currently uses contract manufacturers in the United States and Europe, Ahmed said, and will shift some of that manufacturing in-house, Ahmed said.

Read more at the Milwaukee Business Journal.