Aragen to Establish $30 Million Biomanufacturing Facility in India

On Oct. 30, 2023, Aragen, a contract research development and manufacturing organization (CRDMO), announced that it was setting up a new biologics manufacturing facility in Bangalore, India as part of a $30 million investment.

The new 160,000 m2 facility will include process development labs and multiple good manufacturing practice (GMP) suites as well as supporting functions such as quality control labs (analytical and microbiology). The GMP manufacturing suites will be equipped to conduct intensified bioprocessing using single-use bioreactors and will have advanced downstream purification capability, according to a company press release.

The facility will be designed to offer integrated solutions across the biomanufacturing lifecycle—from process development to process validation, analytical development, pilot production, large-scale drug substance manufacturing, and stability services. The facility will also be equipped to develop and manufacture monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic proteins, and fusion proteins to augment the company’s bioproduction capability in California.

The process development laboratory is slated to be operational by the third quarter of 2024. The first manufacturing suite will open in the third quarter of 2025. The facility will include plasmid DNA, messenger RNA, cell and gene therapy, microbial manufacturing, and additional GMP manufacturing suites in the future to meet demand.

“With the opening of our bio-manufacturing facility, we will empower our customers with even faster development timelines and support their full lifecycle journey from clone development to cell culture manufacturing …, ” said Subodh Deshmukh, CEO, Aragen Bioscience, in the press release.

“Setting up of a biologics manufacturing facility in India is part of our forward integration strategy for our US-based biologics business, allowing Aragen to offer integrated gene-to-GMP solutions to our customers. Once this facility is commissioned, Aragen will offer a unique value proposition to our biologics customers where the early stage discovery will be executed in our R&D labs in California … As the molecule advances, Aragen can tech-transfer the program to our … manufacturing facility in Bangalore, offering better COGS [cost of goods and services] to our customers,” said Manni Kantipudi, CEO, Aragen Life Sciences, in the press release.

Source: Aragen