Agfa said its decision to cease computer-to-plate product manufacturing in Wilmington, Mass., will have no impact on the newspaper segment.

“There were no newspaper products being made at that facility,” Marketing Director Susan Wittner told Newspapers & Technology in February.

“We have printing plate plants around the world and in another month we will be upgrading our Branchburg, N.J., plant — where we currently manufacture newspaper plates and chemistries in the U.S. — for additional capabilities and capacity, including future plates such as violet chem-free and next-generation violet photopolymer.”

Agfa announced plans to halt CTP manufacturing at the Massachusetts plant, which currently produces some of its Avalon platesetters for the commercial printing segment. The production of Avalon will now be shifted to one of Agfa’s existing OEM partners, Wittner said, adding that Agfa will provide more details at a pre-drupa press conference this month March. Agfa did confirm that 150 manufacturing jobs will be lost at the Wilmington plant.

Agfa has not manufactured newspaper platesetters in the U.S. since the vendor outsourced production of that segment to Punch Graphix several years ago.

“This Wilmington change did not affect anything in the newspaper portfolio,” Wittner said. “Every product that was made for newspapers and coldset will be made in the same places they were before.”

In addition to commercial printing manufacturing, Wilmington houses offices for service operations, which are unaffected by the closure, Agfa said.

Agfa also operates a facility in Wilmington, Del.