KBI Biopharma Plans $30-Million Biomanufacturing Expansion
KBI Biopharma (KBI), a contract biologics manufacturer, is investing $30 million to expand its biopharmaceutical manufacturing capacity and capabilities at its facilities in Durham, North Carolina and Boulder, Colorado.
KBI is building commercial mammalian cell-culture manufacturing capability within its Durham facility, which also houses cGMP cell-culture manufacturing lines for clinical production. Upon completion of the project, the commercial manufacturing line will include 2 X 2,000-L single-use bioreactors and recovery and downstream purification suites.
In Boulder, KBI currently offers commercial manufacturing capacity for microbial processes at 1,500-L scale and is adding additional smaller-scale capacity by building a second manufacturing train with 300-L scale fermentation capability using single-use technologies.
This expansion follows KBI’s acquisition of a cell-therapy manufacturing facility in the Houston, Texas area in February 2016.
KBI is a subsidiary of JSR Corporatoin, which provides specialized materials and products to the biotechnology industry. KBI also plans to expand in Europe with the opening of an analytical services laboratory at JSR’s subsidiary, JSR Micro NV, in Leuven, Belgium in the first quarter of 2018. The Belgium analytical lab will also facilitate the continued collaboration between KBI and JSR Life Sciences (JLS), a business unit of JSR Corporation, to expand and enhance JLS’ Amsphere A3 product line.
Source: JSR Life Sciences