The company accelerates CDMO investment to boost its GMP capacity.

According to FUJIFILM, the company plans to invest a total of 3.2 billion yen (approx. $1 billion US) developing their CDMO manufacturing sites in the United State and the United Kingdom. The planned expansion is intended to accelerate the company’s biopharmaceuticals manufacturing and development, as a contract manufacturer for other parties.

FUJIFILM said that in addition to investing approximately 2.2 billion yen for new GMP production capacity to produce monoclonal antibodies at its Diosynth Biotechnologies site located in College Station, Texas, the company is also investing the remaining 1 billion yen to upgrade and expand its Wilton Center facility in Redcar, U.K.

The investment will expand the company’s existing Saturn mAb process development laboratories dedicated to the development of mAbs under the Diosynth Biotechnologies’ platform and operations. Starting from fall 2018 the new facilities’ will be ready for production.

In order to respond to growing customer needs in this field, FUJIFILM has said they will make additional investments earlier than anticipated. In addition, the company will be expanding the range of equipment with the latest technologies, including fully automated bioreactors and chromatography systems, to enable operations for rapid and efficient mAb manufacturing process readiness. “These measures will bolster the company's contract development and manufacturing business by using the Saturn mAb platform™ for the process development and manufacturing of antibodies,” said FUJIFILM. The total cumulative investment in the platform will reach approximately 17.2 billion yen, said the company.