Fujifilm Corporation plans to invest approximately Japanese Yen 14 billion ($130 million) in the US and UK for two new facilities to increase production capacity and process development capabilities for its Bio contract development and manufacturing organization (Bio CDMO) Division, which Fujifilm launched as a standalone unit on March 1, 2017.

The $130-million investment includes a recently completed Japanese Yen 10-billion ($93-million) cGMP production facility at its Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies Texas site. Fujifilm plans to invest an additional Japanese Yen 3 billion ($28 million) to install mammalian cell culture bioreactors in this facility, which will start operations at the beginning of 2018.

Also as part of the $130-million amount, Fujifilm will invest Japanese Yen 1 billion ($9 million) to expand the process development capabilities at its Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies UK Limited unit with a new facility near its Billingham, UK site. This facility is scheduled to be operational in the summer of 2017 and will be the manufacturing center of excellence for the company’s Saturn monoclonal antibody platform with an initial cell-culture capacity of 6,000 liters (3 x  2000-liter bioreactors). The design of the facility allows for future expansion that can accommodate up to 24,000 liters of upstream capacity for clinical and commercial requirements. The investment in the UK includes the establishment of a dedicated mammalian cell culture center of excellence with more than 10,000 square feet of laboratories.

Source: Fujifilm Corporation