Fujifilm to invest over $2bn to build large scale US cell culture facility
The facility will be operated by its subsidiary, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, which has locations in Teesside, UK, in North Carolina and Texas in the US and in Hillerød, Denmark.
The move serves to further underline Fujiflim’s ambitions within the contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) space, following its US$928m investment, announced last year, to expand its site in Hillerød, Denmark, and the capital it is ploughing into its UK and US facilities.
This latest investment, it said, will significantly expand Fujifilm's capacity for process development and manufacturing of antibodies, recombinant proteins, gene therapies and vaccines.
“Through this large investment in the US, we are able to support the development and manufacturing of new drugs that can help fulfill unmet medical needs,” commented Kenji Sukeno, president of Fujifilm Corporation.
Single-site solution
The idea is that the new facility will become an end-to-end single-site solution.
It will offer large-scale cell culture manufacturing of bulk drug substance with eight 20,000L bioreactors, with the potential to expand and add a further 24 bioreactors of that volume based on market demand.
In addition to drug substance manufacture, the plant will also provide commercial scale, automated fill-finish and assembly, packaging and labeling services, said the company.
The new facility will be built within the vicinity of an existing Fujifilm site, and is not scheduled to become operational before the spring of 2025.
Targets
Fujifilm has set a target to achieve an annual revenue of US$2bn for its bio-CDMO business by March 2025.
By March 2026, the company said it expects this latest investment to boost the annual growth rate of its bio-CDMO business to 20%, greatly exceeding market projections.
