With Korean investment firm SK Holdings on board, CDMO Yposkesi is building a second commercial manufacturing plant to support the burgeoning gene therapy sector. Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Yposekesi announced ‘project SKY’ today, investing €58 million ($71 million) in a 50,000 square-foot facility at its site in Corbeil-Essonnes, France – about 40 km south of Paris. Once complete in 2023, the facility will double the CDMO’s production capacity for drug substance of viral vectors and make the Corbeil-Essonnes…

To address increased demand for bioprocessing assemblies, Entegris will invest $30 million to expand three manufacturing facilities. The material and process solutions firm Entegris will expand three of its life sciences manufacturing sites located in Billerica; Massachusetts, Bloomington; Minnesota, and Logan; Utah. “This expansion is in response to the increased pharmaceutical demand for single use high purity bulk systems, especially the ones for freezing, transporting, storing, and thawing drug substances. And obviously, there’s a big challenge for the COVID-19 vaccines,”…

Investment in oncolytic viruses, viral vaccines, and viral vector gene therapies have driven CDMO Vibalogics to expand its capabilities in Germany. Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Vibalogics will pump $50 million into its Cuxhaven, Germany facility to expand early-to-late phase clinical virotherapy manufacturing capacity. According to the firm, it has seen a growing customer base comprised of Big Pharma, start-ups, and mid-sized biotechs requiring viral vectors for a range of pipeline modalities. “The work we are doing in support…

The US needs more pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity on its own soil according to Selkirk Pharma, which has begun constructing a facility in Spokane, Washington.   The planned 145,000 square-foot Washington-based manufacturing plant has been designed for contract manufacturing of injectables drugs, therapeutics, and vaccines.  According to Selkirk CEO Patrick Haffey, the intent is “to build much-needed pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity on US soil.”  While the firm was founded prior to the pandemic, the realization of the fragility of supply chains in light of the coronavirus pandemic has brought in-country production to the forefront with firms like Avid Bioscience claiming it has made localized…

A move to specialized and personalized medicines has led Novartis to plan closure of a Swiss stability testing facility by 2023. Big Pharma has shifted its pipelines away from traditional small molecule drugs to biologics and regenerative medicine over the past 20 years. As such changing needs at Novartis has led the firm to announce it is closing its stability testing facility in Locarno, Switzerland by 2023. “Novartis plans to adapt its product testing capacity in Locarno, Switzerland, to the…

The expanded lentiviral vector manufacturing plant will quadruple capacity, supporting VIVEbiotech’s cell and gene ambitions.   The contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) said in February it would be adding 3,000 square feet to its existing facility in San Sebastian, Spain to ramp up manufacturing capacity and processes in response to lentiviral demand. The president of the Basque Government in Spain, Iñigo Urkullu and Pedro Duque, Minister of Science and Innovation of the Spanish government opened the facility on June 4. The opening ceremony…