Small biotechs should consider buying mothballed plants when scaling-up according to Protein Sciences, which says an ex-Pfizer facility was key to accelerating production of its vaccine Flublok.
J&J says it collaborated with Novartis and GSK to install wind turbines in Cork, Ireland to substantially reduce electricity costs at its local manufacturing plants.
Alexion has recalled another nine lots of Soliris after finding "visible particles" in vials of the $600,000-a-year drug for the third time in 10 months.
Janssen has mirrored Pfizer’s concerns about the scale, price and robustness of using single-use technology for high-volume production but says industry collaboration could help bring standards in place.
A government funded bioprocessing institute is helping to drive biopharma investment and retrain workers in Ireland, and Biopharma-Reporter.com visited to find out what happens in this "flight simulator for biopharma manufacturing."
DISPATCHES FROM THE BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTION FORUM, DUBLIN
Single-use technology for high volume biomanufacturing is riddled with problems and will only be fully implemented by industry once the cost drops, according to Pfizer.
Though industry has fully embraced single-use, manufacturers of such systems need to remove the risk of extractables and leachables and control the supply process according to Sartorius.