BILLINGHAM, U.K., August 20, 2024 – FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a world leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) for biologics, vaccines, advanced therapies, and oncolytic viruses, today hosted a celebration for the opening of its microbial fermentation manufacturing facility in Billingham. This new facility triples existing microbial production throughput with the addition of a new production line equipped with 2 X 4000 L fermenters, primary separations suite and a modular purification suite with an investment over 100 million GBP.
To support further expansion, the facility is built with the flexibility to accommodate new projects to meet the emerging needs of FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies’ partners, and to provide supply chain resilience.
This expansion was customized, in part, to support a large pharmaceutical partner with a highly specialized ophthalmic therapeutic for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Wet AMD is an eye disorder that causes blurred vision in the central vision. AMD is the biggest cause of sight loss in the UK, affecting more than 700,000 people, with 39,800 patients developing ‘wet’ AMD each year1.
“With the completion of this project, we are fulfilling our commitment with our partner, and supporting the commercialization of its ophthalmic therapeutic,” said Lars Petersen, president and CEO, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies. “This is a prime example of our partnership-based business model, a key element in our Partners for Life strategy, to help our customers bring their life-impacting medicines to patients.”
“Sight loss is devastating for the quality of life, and the confidence, of those who suffer from it. The specialised therapeutics that will be made at Billingham, thanks to this investment, could eventually help thousands of people who suffer from wet age-related macular degeneration,” said Science Minister Lord Vallance. “This news is also proof of the economic value of our life sciences clusters – pulling investment into places like Teesside and building on the world-class expertise that is already in the area.”
“Securing capacity in strategic locations to support our customers’ needs now and in the future is a key element of our Partners for Life strategy,” said Kenneth Bilenberg, chief operations officer, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies. “Today’s celebration underscores our commitment to our BioCampus in Billingham where we are progressing on expansions for our Process Development and Quality labs as well as an expansion focusing on late stage clinical and commercial cell culture drug substance manufacturing.”
“Our broad capabilities in microbial process development and commercial manufacture, the depth of our experience, and our innovative and proprietary technologies and systems, such as the Paveway™ PLUS expression systems2, are crucial to ensure that we are able to support the short-and-long term needs of our partners to ensure a secure supply to advance clinical trials, and bring patient medicines to market,” said Jonathan Haigh, UK site head, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies.
1First NOD Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) audit annual report| NOD Audit. 2003. https://nodaudit.org.uk/node/4174#:~:text=AMD%20is%20the%20biggest%20cause,affects%20one%20person%20in%20five.
2Paveway™ PLUS is a well proven E. coli expression system with >150 different therapeutic proteins successfully expressed with a variety of accumulation routes, including intracellular soluble, intracellular insoluble and periplasmic secretion. In addition to the potential for reduced costs of goods, Paveway also makes possible antibiotic-free cGMP production without compromising yields and versatility.
From left to right: Lars Petersen, Jonathan Haigh, and Kenneth Bilenberg.
FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a subsidiary of FUJIFILM Corporation, is a world-leading contract development and manufacturing organization partner for the development and manufacture of biologics, vaccines, cell and gene therapies, and oncolytic viruses. The company operates a global network with major locations in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Denmark and it is building a new manufacturing site in Holly Springs, North Carolina, USA. FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies has over thirty years of experience in the development and manufacture of recombinant proteins, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, among other large molecules, viral products and medical countermeasures expressed in a wide array of microbial, mammalian, and host/virus systems. The company offers a comprehensive list of services from cell line development using its proprietary Paveway™ microbial and Apollo™X cell line systems to process development, analytical development, clinical and FDA-approved commercial manufacturing. For more information, go to: www.fujifilmdiosynth.com.
About FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation
FUJIFILM Corporation is a subsidiary of FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation. FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, leverages its depth of knowledge and proprietary core technologies to deliver innovative products and services across the globe through the four key business segments of healthcare, electronics, business innovation, and imaging with over 70,000 employees. Guided and united by our Group Purpose of “giving our world more smiles,” we address social challenges and create a positive impact on society through our products, services, and business operations. Under its medium-term management plan, VISION2030, which ends in FY2030, we aspire to continue our evolution into a company that creates value and smiles for various stakeholders as a collection of global leading businesses and achieve a global revenue of 4 trillion yen (29 billion USD at an exchange rate of 140 JPY/USD). For more information, please visit: www.fujifilmholdings.com.
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