Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies is less than 5 years old as CMO for biopharmaceuticals but has quickly built up its infrastructure. This week it added another operation to its stable.
The Japanese-based company officially opened a 62,000-square-foot facility in Research Triangle Park, NC, to house its process and analytical research and development, process sciences and stability groups. The BioProcess Innovation Center not only is adding services but also intends to develop more efficient biologics manufacturing processes, the company said.
“The design of the facility reflects our core philosophy of cross-functional collaboration to research and process development,” Martin Meeson, president of Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies U.S.A., said in a statement.
Fujifilm jumped into biologics manufacturing in 2011 when it reportedly paid about $490 million to buy biologics plants in North Carolina and Northeast England from Merck & Co. ($MRK), when the U.S. company decided it wanted out of the contract business.
Fujifilm expanded the facility in the U.K. in 2013 and then in 2014 bought a 49% interest in vaccine specialist Kalon Biotherapeutics, which is working with GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) on a government-backed vaccine plant in Texas. GSK is building the $91 million, 100,000-square-foot Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Facility with the university. The facility, which has gotten U.S. federal funds, will be available to the government in the case of a pandemic.
- here’s the announcement
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