MilliporeSigma intends to add an additional 38,500 square feet of manufacturing space at its site in New Hampshire to support demand for filtration devices.

The bioprocessing business unit of Germany’s Merck KGaA, MilliporeSigma, has revealed it is planning to expand a site in Jaffrey, New Hampshire that makes filtration equipment for the life sciences industry.

“To meet the future demands of the bioprocessing market, we are in the approval process to expand the facility with additional cleanroom and lab space over the course of the next couple of years,” MilliporeSigma spokesperson Karen Tiano told Bioprocess Insider.

MilliporeSigma’s site in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Image: Google

She added that designs are in process with an estimated 38,500 additional square feet of manufacturing space, something cited in the City of Jaffrey planning board meeting agenda:

“The applicant proposes a building expansion to lab and manufacturing space of 35,800 SF to include a 24,200 SF single-story addition and an 11,600 SF two-story construction.”

In the meeting itself on June 11, representatives from the firm told the panel of town planners that Millipore has been in Jaffrey since the 1970s and has been a “major economic driver for the area.”

They added the expansion will consolidate and relocate existing lab facilities at the site, and expand hallways to “allow the reconfiguration of manufacturing space within the facility that allow employees an egress without having to cross the manufacturing areas to keep restricted areas and sterile areas separate.”

MilliporeSigma and filtration

Filtration is a major part of MilliporeSigma’s business.

Speaking last November, Udit Batra, CEO MilliporeSigma, said much of the division’s growth was coming from demand in downstream processing, along with disposable equipment.

“The single-use in hardware business is growing close to 30% and the downstream processing, which is our classical consumables business – especially in filtration – is even in excess of that,” he told shareholders during parent company Merck’s Q3 2018 call.

The firm has continued to bolster its filtration and single-use portfolio, and recently launched Pellicon Single-Pass Tangential Flow Filtration (TFF).

“In the past 15 to 20 years, we really led [the tangential filtration] market. We’ve reexamined it and we introduced a disposable capsule instead of cassettes, which are open,” said Batra.

He continued: “For now, I would say all three drivers are relevant. The portfolio breadth, the fact that we have innovation across this portfolio breadth, the global presence and the end-to-end contract manufacturing piece as well.”