Boehringer Ingelheim broke ground on a $65 million research and development facility in Ridgefield, Conn., in November of 2011. The 72,000-sf facility will support the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for early stage product development. Completion is expected in 2014. A $42.5 million safety assessment building is also under construction. Boehringer Ingelheim is based in Germany.
The Almac Group is expanding its pharmaceutical R&D campus in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, with the construction of a $7.2 million formulation development facility. The scale-up laboratory will support early stage clinical development of solid oral dose drug products. Completion is expected in mid-2012. A second phase of expansion will include the construction of additional analytical and quality control labs, with completion slated for year-end 2012.
Roche opened its Center of Excellence for clinical supply manufacturing on September 30, 2011. The 17,000-sf facility will produce pharmaceutical compounds for preclinical safety studies. Ground was broken on the cGMP project in May of 2010 with construction beginning in August of 2010.
Shionogi celebrated the opening of its $246.4 million pharmaceutical research facility in August of 2011. Located in Toyonaka City, Osaka, the 105,476-sf building will consolidate Shionogi's drug discovery research from four separate locations. The Shionogi Pharmaceutical Research Center (SPRC) is designed to foster interaction and collaboration and features advanced instrumentation and laboratory equipment. Construction began on the facility in September of 2008 with completion in July of 2011.
Isogenica completed construction of a new pharmaceutical automation facility in July of 2011. Located in the Chesterford Research Park in the United Kingdom, the plant will house a high throughput CIS display platform, liquid handling robots, and screening equipment. The facility will produce advanced biopharmaceutical therapeutics.
SANYO North America Corporation Biomedical Solutions Division and BD Biosciences, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), have announced a strategic agreement to jointly promote cutting-edge life science research tools designed to advance cell culture and cell therapy research. The goals of this collaboration are to develop long-term and short-term co-marketing programs, as well as to research innovative ways to combine product technologies and offerings to serve both current and untapped market applications.
The Center for Childhood Cancer Research opened the 20,000-sf Jensen Laboratory in July of 2011 in Seattle. The facility will feature research laboratories and an on-site therapeutics manufacturing facility for the production of customized immune cells for individualized cancer treatment. The laboratory is affiliated with Seattle Children’s Hospital.
MSD (Merck Sharp Dohme) opened the Bioassay Centre of Expertise and the Pneumococcal Vaccine Conjugation Facility in June of 2011 in Brinny, Ireland. The facilities represent an investment of $41 million and will support the development, commercialization, and manufacture of vaccines and protein-based therapeutics.
Novartis broke ground in June of 2011 on a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in St. Petersburg, Russia. Part of a five-year, $500 million investment, the facility will utilize advanced technologies to produce innovative therapeutics and generics. Completion is expected in 2014.
Allosource broke ground in May of 2011 on a expansion and renovation of its facilities in Centennial, Colo. Providing labs, cleanrooms, offices, testing suites, conference rooms, and medical training space, the project will enable Allosource to consolidate its operations in a single location. The facility was designed by Intergroup Architects with The Weitz Company as general contractor. Completion of the new facility is expected in spring of 2012 with existing facility renovations concluding in fall of 2012.
Caliber Biotherapeutics opened a 145,000-sf biopharmaceutical production plant in April of 2011 in College Station, Texas. The facility will support the manufacturing of vaccines and protein-based drugs using tobacco plants instead of conventional egg-based methodologies. The project features modular cleanroom pods for purification and laboratory equipment. Caliber Therapeutics represents a research partnership of Texas A&M University and G-Con LLC.
CSM GlobalPharma will break ground on a $65 million pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Rwanda in mid-2011. The facility will support production of solids, liquids, biological vaccines and injectables, and therapeutics with active pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). The plant is expected to become operational two years after the start of construction. CSM GlobalPharma is a partnership of Candila Pharmaceuticals of India and U.S.-based Holtzman Group.
HealthSport’s integrated thin film production facility will open in April of 2011. Located in Oxnard, Calif., the 30,000-sf project will provide research, development, and cGMP manufacturing space for dissolvable bi-layer oral thin film products for delivery of pharmaceutical active ingredients through buccal absorption. The facility will have a production capacity of up to 480 million strips per year.
Quotient Clinical announced the completion of a major expansion of its pharmaceutical sciences facilities in March of 2011 in Nottingham. The GMP manufacturing suite has doubled in size and now incorporates six independent manufacturing rooms supporting oral, inhaled, and parenteral drug products. The formulation development and pharmaceutical analysis laboratory areas have also been significantly increased and now occupy an 11,000-sf purpose-built facility.
University College Dublin opened the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training in March of 2011. The 70,000-sf facility was created in partnership with Trinity College, Dublin City University, and Sligo Institute of Technology. The center includes research space, a pilot plant, and a complete bioprocessing manufacturing operation for training programs.
