Supplier News: Lonza, WuXi Biologics, Euroapi, 3M & More
The latest from CDMOs, CMOs, and suppliers featuring Lonza, WuXi Biologics, Euroapi, 3M, Sterling Pharma, Purolite, Cambrex, Catalent, Charles River, Wheeler Bio, Adcock Pharma, Upperton Pharma, Waters, Sartorius, ProBio, KBI Biopharma, AGC Biologics, AtomVie and GenScript.
Chemicals/Chemical API Manufacturing
* Lonza Acquires ADC Company Synaffix
* Euroapi Investing $54 M To Expand Prostaglandin Mfg
* Investment Firm Partners Group Takes Minority Stake in Sterling Pharma
Biologics Manufacturing
* WuXi Biologics To Expand Mfg Capacity in Germany
* Purolite To Build New Bioprocessing Resin Facility
* 3M Investing $146 M To Expand Filtration for Bioprocessing
* Waters, Sartorius Expand Bioprocessing Pact
* Charles River, Wheeler Bio Partner for Biologics Testing
* Catalent Expands Biologics Offering OneBio
* KBI Biopharma Launches New Cell-Line Development Platform
* AGC Biologics Launches AGCellerate Program
* GenScript, Comprehensive Cell Solutions In Pact for Cell- & Gene-Therapy
Formulation Development/Drug Product Manufacturing
* Adcock Pharma Completes Construction of New Drug-Product Mfg Facility
* Cambrex Opens Stability Storage Facility in Belgium
* Upperton Pharma Expands Oral Dosage Capacity
General
* AtomVie Raises $90 M for Radiopharmaceutical Mfg Facility
Chemicals/Chemical API Manufacturing
Lonza Acquires ADC Company Synaffix
Lonza has acquired Synaffix, an Oss, Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands-based biotechnology company focused on developing antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), in a deal worth up to $171 million (EUR 100 million ($107 million) upfront and EUR 60 million ($64 million) in milestone payments).
Synaffix has a technology platform that includes payload and site-specific linker technologies, which will add to Lonza’s ADC services, including its early-phase offering.
Lonza and Synaffix will continue to expand their Center of Excellence for Bioconjugate Technology Development, with a focus on out-licensing bioconjugates technologies for cytotoxic ADCs, targeted gene therapies, and immune-cell engagers applications.
The acquisition comprises an initial financial consideration of EUR 100 million ($107 million) and up to EUR 60 million ($64 million) in additional performance-based consideration. As a Lonza company, Synaffix will continue to operate under the Synaffix name and further expand its operations in Oss.
Source: Lonza
Euroapi Investing $54 M To Expand Prostaglandin Mfg
Euroapi, a recent spin-off from Sanofi and a CDMO of small-molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients and intermediates, is investing EUR 50 million ($54 million) to expand prostaglandin manufacturing capacity at its site in Budapest, Hungary.
The expansion involves debottlenecking and the installation of new manufacturing equipment that will more than double overall prostaglandin capacity of the company’s Budapest site. The expansion is slated to be completed by 2027 in two phases: 2023-2025 (approximately two-thirds of the total investment) and 2026-2027 (the remaining one-third of the investment).
Source: Euroapi
Investment Firm Partners Group Takes Minority Stake in Sterling Pharma
Partners Group, an investment firm, has taken a minority stake in Sterling Pharma Solutions, a Dudley, UK-based CDMO of small-molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and intermediates. Global Healthcare Opportunities, an investment firm, holds a majority stake in Sterling Pharma.
In separate news, Sterling Pharma has been invited to join an industry consortium for artificial intelligence (AI)-based continuous manufacturing. The partnership, led by Imperial College London and BASF, has a value of £17.8 million ($22.1 million), including funding from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, to pool resources from experts across the chemical industry to research and design new AI-led processes and production techniques. The partnership will start on July 1, 2023, and is expected to last for five years.
Source: Sterling Pharma Solutions (Minority Stake) and Sterling Pharma Solutions (consortium)
Biologics Manufacturing
WuXi Biologics To Expand Mfg Capacity in Germany
WuXi Biologics, a CDMO of biologics, is increasing its manufacturing capacity at two of its facilities in Germany.
The company’s sterile filling and freeze-drying plant at Chempark Leverkusen, with an annual capacity of approximately 10 million doses, is being expanded to include a second variable filling line. The company’s drug-substance facility in Wuppertal is expected to double its total capacity from 12,000 L to 24,000 L.
Source: WuXi Biologics
Purolite To Build New Bioprocessing Resin Facility
Purolite, a King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based supplier of resin-based separation, purification, and extraction products, is building a new biologics resin manufacturing facility in Landenberg, Pennsylvania.
The Landenberg location will be Purolite’s sixth manufacturing facility globally. It will produce agarose chromatography resin for downstream monoclonal antibody and recombinant protein purification and will support new modality purification across cell-therapy, gene-therapy, and mRNA applications.
Source: Purolite
3M Investing $146 M To Expand Filtration for Bioprocessing
3M is investing $146 million dollars to expand its filtration products for bioprocessing. The investment will include facility and equipment improvements and the addition of 60 full-time positions in 3M manufacturing facilities in Europe.
Source: 3M
Waters, Sartorius Expand Bioprocessing Pact
Waters Corporation, an analytical instrumentation and software company, and Sartorius, a provider of products and services for the life-sciences, including bioprocessing, have formed a new collaboration in downstream biomanufacturing. The new collaboration expands the companies’ joint agreement that began with upstream bioprocessing analytics.
The agreement will integrate Sartorius’ process-scale multi-column chromatography products with Waters’ process analytical technology to enable further analytical data in downstream bioprocessing.
Source: Waters Corporation
Charles River, Wheeler Bio Partner for Biologics Testing
Charles River Laboratories, a CRO, and Wheeler Bio, an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based biologics CDMO, have entered an agreement to add RightSource, a biologics testing lab managed by Charles River, at Wheeler Bio’s cGMP biologics manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City.
Source: Charles River Laboratories
Catalent Expands Biologics Offering OneBio
Catalent has expanded its development, manufacturing and supply offering, OneBio Suite, across a range of biologic modalities, including antibody and recombinant proteins, cell and gene therapies, and mRNA. Originally launched in 2019 for early-phase protein therapy development, OneBio Suite is a service to accelerate programs from development to manufacturing, including fill-finish, packaging, and support for clinical supply and commercial launch.
Source: Catalent
KBI Biopharma Launches New Cell-Line Development Platform
KBI Biopharma, a Durham, North Carolina-based biologics CDMO, has launched KBI PUREplatform, a microbial cell-line development platform that features a microbial expression system for biopharmaceutical production.
Source: KBI Biopharma
AGC Biologics Launches AGCellerate Program
AGC Biologics, a contract biologics manufacturer, has launched AGCellerate, a new program for investigational new drug (IND)-ready GMP material for biologics projects using monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), lentiviral vectors, adeno-associated vectors and plasmid DNA material. The AGCellerate mAb program is now available, and the company plans to release details on the other modalities later this year (2023).
Source: AGC Biologics
GenScript, Comprehensive Cell Solutions In Pact for Cell- & Gene-Therapy
GenScript ProBio, a Piscataway, New Jersey-based CDMO, and Comprehensive Cell Solutions (CCS), a CDMO of biologics, have partnered for the development of cell and gene therapies.
The agreement will provide GenScript with CCS’s expertise in clinical cell-therapy manufacturing and bone-marrow transplant services, along with access to blood-related products, apheresis and cell sourcing, process development and optimization, analytical testing, cryopreservation, and fill-finish. In return, CCS will be able to use GenScript’s capabilities in developing and manufacturing antibody/protein drugs, plasmids, viral vectors, vaccines, mRNA, and antibody-drug conjugates.
Source: GenScript ProBio
Formulation Development/Drug Product Manufacturing
Adcock Pharma Completes Construction of New Drug-Product Mfg Facility
The CMO business of Adcock Ingram Pharma, a Midrand, South Africa-based bio/pharmaceutical company, has completed construction of a new manufacturing facility in Bengaluru, India.
The facility has three floors above ground, a total floor area of 7,878 square meters, and an annual production capacity of 750 million tablets, 75 million sachets, and 4 million bottles.
Adcock Ingram Pharma Private Limited, established in 2021, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Adcock Ingram Limited, which is a joint venture between Adcock Ingram Holdings Ltd., in South Africa, and Medreich Limited, a Bengaluru, Karnatak-based bio/pharmaceutical company and CDMO/CMO.
Source: Meiji Seika
Cambrex Opens Stability Storage Facility in Belgium
Cambrex has opened a new stability storage facility in Villers-le-Bouillet, Belgium and has signed a new commercial agreement with QUALIblood, a Belgium-based CRO focused on analytical services for blood investigations and hemocompatibility testing.
The facility, which spans over 2,000 square meters, is equipped with temperature-controlled storage chambers. The facility is part of Q1 Scientific, a Waterford, Ireland-based provider of cGMP stability storage services, which Cambrex acquired in June 2022.
Source: Cambrex
Upperton Pharma Expands Oral Dosage Capacity
Upperton Pharma Solutions, a Nottingham, UK-based CDMO of drug products, has expanded its oral dosage form capabilities at its newly built headquarters in Nottingham, UK.
Part of Upperton’s £15 million ($19 million) investment program announced in January (January 2023), the facility has commercial-scale equipment offering powder blending up to 250 kg per batch, capsule filling up to 40,000 capsules/hour, dry-granulation processing up to 100 kg/hour, and tablet pressing up to 120,000 tablets/hour.
The new equipment is currently being installed and commissioned in a dedicated 800-square-foot cleanroom, which is one of 10 GMP suites housed in Upperton’s 50,000-square-foot facility. The facility is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2023.
Source: Upperton Pharma Solutions
General
AtomVie Raises $90 M for Radiopharmaceutical Mfg Facility
AtomVie Global Radiopharma, a Toronto, Canada-based CDMO of radiopharmaceuticals, has raised over $90 million to complete the buildout of its 64,000-square-foot radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facility.
Source: AtomVie Global Radiopharma
