Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies Opens New Manufacturing Facility

Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies formally opened its new mammalian cell culture cGMP manufacturing facility in the United Kingdom, the company reported in a press release. The new facility, which was built and commissioned in less than 15 months, is the first facility of its kind in the UK that was purpose-built to use primarily single-use technologies for both upstream and downstream operations. It has initially been commissioned with 200-L and 1000-L bioreactors, with a 2000-L bioreactor planned for 2014. The company is working on its first customer project for the facility.

This new capacity is the latest in a series of investments at both Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies’ UK and Research Triangle Park, NC, US facilities over the past two years. New cell-line development and process-development laboratories have been set up at both sites, and a 1000-L single-use bioreactor was installed at the US facility two years ago to supplement its 2000-L stainless-steel train for the GMP production of mammalian cell-culture biopharmaceuticals.