Amneal CEO Chintu Patel says the drugmaker’s plants on Long Island, New York, are already near capacity. With a merger with pharma peer Impax Laboratories expected to close in the first half of the year, he figures the company needs even more space and employees to meet growing demand.

The company expects to add 100,000 square feet to its 500,000-square-foot plant in South Yaphank, Long Island, and hire about 400 employees over the next 18 months, a spokesman said in an email today. The facility, which makes a range of generic solid dose and softgel products, currently employs about 600.

Patel’s remarks came during an event Tuesday in which the company received an energy rebate check of more than $600,000 from the local utility tied to a $150 million energy efficiency project Amneal recently completed at the South Yaphank facility. Amneal is also eligible for up to $3 million from the state for the project, for which it has already received $1.5 million.

The company said the project allowed it to reduce its electric consumption by 976,257-kilowatt hours (kWh) per year, the equivalent of taking 156 cars off the road for a year.

No details were given on when a plant expansion might start or what it would cost, but Patel’s talk of expansion also comes after Impax announced a merger deal with Amneal valued at about $6.4 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the second quarter. Patel said he hopes some of Impax' products might be produced at Amneal plants, Newsday reported. Amneal employs nearly 1,100 at its three Long Island locations, South Yaphank, Hauppauge and Commack.

After the merger with Impax, Amneal says it would be the fifth largest generics maker in the U.S.