MilliporeSigma has announced an expansion of its Carlsbad, California facility to meet growing demand for viral and gene therapy products. Scheduled for completion in 2016, the Carlsbad campus will increase from 44,000 square feet to 65,000 square feet, with 16 modular viral bulk manufacturing cleanroom suites, two fill/finish suites and twice the warehouse capacity. The expansion will incorporate single-use equipment in a flexible, scalable format for clinical and commercial bulk drug production.

The Carlsbad facility, MilliporeSigma's flagship site for SAFC’s viral and gene therapies offering, will remain fully operational throughout the expansion. MilliporeSigma gained the facility through its $17 billion acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich in 2015, which includes Sigma-Aldrich’s SAFC business.

The Carlsbad campus features segregated fill/finish capacity for gene therapy, viral vaccine and immunotherapy products. The company's new capacity at Carlsbad positions MilliporeSigma to offer services at the clinical to commercial scales, and is complemented by cell-banking services in Rockville, Maryland, viral and gene therapy manufacturing capacity in Glasgow, Scotland and global BioReliance biosafety testing offering.

The life science business of Merck KGaA, which operates as MilliporeSigma in the U. and Canada, has 19,000 employees and 72 manufacturing sites worldwide, with a portfolio of more than 300,000 products enabling scientific discovery. Udit Batra is the global chief executive officer of MilliporeSigma.

Source: MilliporeSigma