PerkinElmer To Acquire BioLegend for $5.25-Bn; Resilience, Grifols Expand
The latest from CDMOs, CMOs, and suppliers featuring PerkinElmer, Resilience, Grifols, WuXi Biologics, Catalent, and SCA Pharma.
Biologics Manufacturing
Resilience To Acquire Cell-Therapy Mfg Facility from bluebird bio
Resilience, a recently launched manufacturing and technology company for biologics and advanced therapies, and bluebird bio, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based clinical-stage gene-therapy company, have entered into a pact under which Resilience will acquire a clinical and commercial manufacturing facility from bluebird bio for $110 million.
Under the agreement, Resilience will acquire bluebird’s manufacturing facility in Research Triangle, North Carolina and retain all of the more than 100 staff and administrators currently employed at the site. Resilience will continue to support vector supply for both bluebird bio and 2seventy bio, bluebird’s spin-off oncology cell-therapy company that is expected to launch by the end of 2021.
The 125,000-square foot facility, located in Durham, North Carolina, is currently manufacturing lentiviral vector (LVV), a component for cell and gene therapies. The facility will be the primary source of suspension LVV for both bluebird bio and 2seventy bio.
The facility includes drug-substance and drug-product production suites, quality control testing laboratories, and warehousing space as well as additional footprint for future expansion. Upon completion of the acquisition, the Resilience network will include 10 sites in North America with more than one million square feet of manufacturing, development, and support space.
Additionally, the two companies are also finalizing a definitive agreement to establish partner programs that will share expense and revenue for successful commercialized oncology products and in parallel establish a manufacturing R&D collaboration. They also plan to collaborate on the next phase of 2seventy’s pipeline by each applying their respective innovations in cell- therapy development and manufacturing through a risk-sharing model.
Source: Resilience and bluebird bio
PerkinElmer To Acquire BioLegend for $5.25 Bn
PerkinElmer has agreed to acquire BioLegend, a San Diego, California-based provider of life science antibodies and reagents, for approximately $5.25 billion.
BioLegend provides antibodies and reagents in areas such as cytometry, proteogenomics, multiplex assays, recombinant proteins, magnetic cell separation and bioprocessing. BioLegend has more than 700 employees based primarily in the US, with estimated 2022 revenues of $380 million.
Upon joining PerkinElmer, BioLegend will expand PerkinElmer’s existing life-science franchise into new segments, and its campus in San Diego, California will become PerkinElmer’s global Center of Excellence for research reagent content development for the combined company.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the 2021, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Source: PerkinElmer
Formulation Development/Drug-Product Manufacturing
Wuxi Biologics Gets Mfg License for Drug-Product Facility
WuXi Biologics, a contract biologics manufacturer, has received a commercial manufacturing license from German health authorities for its drug-product facility in Leverkusen, Germany.
In January 2020, WuXi Biologics acquired the drug-product manufacturing facility from Bayer. WuXi Biologics took over the plant operations in April 2020.
The facility is slated to begin commercial manufacturing of a key product next week (as reported on July 26, 2021).
Source: WuXi Biologics
Catalent Launches New Dosing Service
Catalent has launched a new dosing service to develop the ideal dose form using target patient characteristics to optimize the potential of a given molecule. The OptiDose Design Solution is available throughout Catalent’s global oral dose network.
Source: Catalent
SCA Pharma Appoints New CEO
SCA Pharmaceuticals, a Little Rock, Arkansas-headquartered company specializing in sterile compounding, has named Scott Luce as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Mr. Luce brings more than three decades of pharmaceutical industry leadership experience to SCA Pharma. He joined SCA Pharma earlier this year (2021) as Chief Commercial Officer and most recently served as an operating partner with The Vistria Group, a private investment firm. Previously, Mr. Luce held leadership roles in general management, sales and marketing, and business development with both Abbott and Baxter.
Mr. Luce said his priorities as CEO include fulfilling the company’s construction plan to expand capacity. The expansion will increase SCA Pharma’s physical footprint and introduce new automation to enhance scalability.
Mr. Luce succeeds Milton Boyer, who led the company through several milestones, including the opening of a new manufacturing facility, and delivering pharmaceuticals to hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: SCA Pharmaceuticals
Packaging
Grifols To Build IV Bag Production Plant in Nigeria
Grifols, a Barcelona, Spain-based producer of plasma-derived medicines and provider of technologies and services, will establish an intravenous (IV) solutions production plant in Nigeria, Africa for Dozie and Dozie’s Pharma Nig, an Abuja, Nigeria-based pharmaceutical company and provider of healthcare products in Nigeria and the surrounding region.
When completed in 2024 in southeast Nigeria, the manufacturing installation’s initial phase will produce as many as 5.5 million IV solutions bags yearly to be used in hospitals and other healthcare institutions in Nigeria and other African countries. Grifols Engineering will design the plant and provide cleanrooms and process equipment. Sufficient capacity will be incorporated to enable the doubling of output.
Grifols strengthened its presence in Africa in November 2020 when it entered into a deal with the government of Egypt to develop the local market for plasma-derived therapies, including the opening of 20 plasma centers and the construction of a plasma fractionation plant and a purification and fill-finish plant.
Source: Grifols