SAFC, a member of the Sigma-Aldrich group, has announced its plans for a $12 million expansion at its niche biologics production facility in Carlsbad, Calif. Two new fully segregated state-of-the-art viral product manufacturing suites will be built to employ the latest in disposable bioreactor technologies and enable SAFC Pharma's viral manufacturing to increase to commercial-scale quantities, according to a company statement.
SAFC is the custom manufacturing and services group within Sigma-Aldrich that focuses on high-purity inorganics for high technology applications, cell culture products and services for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, biochemical production and the manufacturing of complex, multi-step organic synthesis of APIs and key intermediates. Sigma-Aldrich is a Life Science and High Technology company whose biochemical and organic chemical products and kits are used in scientific and genomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, the diagnosis of disease and as key components in pharmaceutical and other high technology manufacturing.
This latest facility expansion follows a series of 2007 investments for SAFC Pharma, which includes a $10 million expansion of commercial-scale APIs manufacturing and storage capacity, respectively, at Arklow, Ireland and Buchs, Switzerland, and a $29 million potent-fermentation expansion in Jerusalem, Israel. Other investments include a $4.5 million cGMP pilot plant and kilo lab capacity expansion at the Company's flagship high-potency facility in Madison, Wisc. and a new high-potency API conjugation suite located at the St. Louis manufacturing campus, both scheduled for completion in the first quarter of 2008.
