Merck KGaA invests in France, boosts production capacity for mAbs
The Darmstadt, Germany headquartered business combined its existing contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and contract testing services in February this year; that CTDMO offer forms part of the recently formed Life Science Services (LSS) division. The objective: the strengthening of its CDMO offering and speeding up future growth.
Millipore CTDMO services span pre-clinical to commercial phases, including testing, across multiple modalities including mAbs, highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients, antibody-drug conjugates, viral vector therapies, mRNA, and lipid nanoparticle formulation. This includes hardware and software, single-use consumables, and raw materials.
The new 2,700 sq. m. facility in Martillac will provide global supply of commercial drug substances, including mAbs and other recombinant proteins, from an integrated site that includes single-use equipment and onsite regulatory, quality, and technical experts, outlined Merck.
The focus is on accelerating the development and commercialization process, eliminating the need for tech transfer and scale-up between clinical and commercial stages, it added.
The facility is designed to be highly efficient, it continued, with the ability to rapidly pivot from 200 to 2000 litres of drug substance. It also has two 2,000-litre bioreactors in one manufacturing suite to increase capacity and flexibility.
Merck recently announced expansion projects in its Life Sciences business sector in Verona and Sheboygan, Wisconsin, US; Cork, Ireland; Wuxi, China; Darmstadt, Germany; Buchs, Switzerland; Carlsbad, California, US; Jaffrey, New Hampshire, US; Danvers, Massachusetts, US, Molsheim, France, and Shanghai, China.
The investments are part of an overall strategy to expand its business and group sales, with a stated aim of increasing sales to €25bn by 2025. In order to do so, the company has stated that it plans to increase capital expenditure “significantly compared with the period from 2016 to 2020.”
