Latest Avid investment to turn bioreactor capacity up to 11 (thousand litres)
The Myford facility came online in December 2015, but continued demand for clinical and commercial biomanufacturing has led to a capacity upgrade.
Avid Bioservices – the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals – will add multiple 2,000L single-use bioreactors at the site, and has selected MilliporeSigma’s Mobius offering following a pilot programme to assess the equipment.
While Avid president Steven King told Biopharma-Reporter the firm has experience with a “wide number of different single-use systems across multiple vendors,” this is the CMO’s first foray into the 2,000L scale.
“This [pilot programme] experience with the MilliporeSigma technology has reinforced our belief that the Mobius platform ease of use and technical benefits represents a great fit for our facility and for our client needs.”
The investment will “bring total capacity within the Myford facility to over 9,000L of capacity at the 1,000 and 2,000L scale and the total capacity at our two facilities to over 11,000L,” we were told. Avid’s other facility is the Franklin plant, also located in Tustin, California.
“With the installation of the new bioreactors at Myford, we expect that facility, when operating in campaign mode, can exceed more than $75m annually. This would bring our total potential annual revenue across both of manufacturing facilities to well over $100m.”
While the size of this investment was not divulged, CFO Paul Lytle said in March installing two bioreactors at the Myford would up capacity while keeping costs relatively low:
“The cost of those bioreactors is nominal compared to the overall cost of facility, and it will be negligible compared to the opportunity that we can generate from those bioreactors,” he told investors.
The firm also confirmed to this publication plans announced last year for a third manufacturing facility with two x 1,000L single-use bioreactors have been modified. The change involves the leasing of a different space in the same building as the existing Myford facility rather than a constructing a standalone facility, which will be used as a central warehouse for all manufacturing operations.
"The company has recently secured additional space adjacent to its Myford facility which will allow Avid to further expand capacity based on committed business," said King. "While Avid will only begin converting the space into manufacturing capacity once client commitments and other necessary financing is in place, this additional space puts the company in an excellent position for continuing to grow the business."
