08 January 2021 | News
An end-to-end single-site solution from drug substances to fill-finish & packaging
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FUJIFILM Corporation is making an investment of more than 200 Billion yen ($2 Billion) to establish a new large-scale cell culture production site in the United States to accelerate the growth of its biopharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing business (CDMO).
FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a subsidiary of FUJIFILM Corporation, with development and manufacturing facilities across the U.S.A., U.K., and Denmark will operate the new facility. This new facility will offer large-scale cell culture manufacturing of bulk drug substance with 8 x 20,000L bioreactors (physical volume), with the potential to expand and add a further 24 x 20,000L bioreactors based on market demand. In addition to drug substance manufacture, the facility will also provide commercial scale, automated fill-finish and assembly, packaging and labeling services. The new site will be built within the vicinity of an existing Fujifilm site, and is scheduled to begin operations in the spring of 2025.
Fujifilm is actively investing to enhance and grow its end to end service offerings across all of its Bio CDMO sites. Most recently (June 2020) FUJIFILM Corporation invested 100 billion yen ($928 million) in FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies' Hillerød, Denmark site to double its large-scale cell culture manufacturing capacity and add commercial scale drug product production capabilities.
"We are leveraging our strengths in process development and manufacturing for a wide range of biopharmaceuticals such as antibodies, recombinant proteins, gene therapies and vaccines," said Martin Meeson, chief executive officer at FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies. "We are uniquely placed to support our customer supply chain needs providing end to end services from small to large scale bulk drug substance production, through to fill-finish and final packing."
Fujifilm has set a target to achieve an annual revenue of 200 billion yen for its Bio CDMO business* by fiscal year ending March 2025. Beyond fiscal year ending March 2026, Fujifilm expects this latest investment to boost the annual growth rate of its Bio CDMO Business to 20%, greatly exceeding market projections. Going forward, Fujifilm will continue to contribute to the healthcare industry by providing a stable supply of high quality pharmaceuticals.