PHARMACEUTICALS
Fujifilm Diosynth will also open small-scale( 2,000-5,000 L) biologics facilities in Billingham, UK, next year and in Toyama, Japan, one year later. These will also be identical in terms of all their operating, process, IT and other systems, enabling customers to come into either.“ We are spending $ 9 billion and building out a new facility every year for the next four years. This has never been done in the industry before,” said Petersen.
This is all being undertaken to address what the company sees as the key challenge of meeting demand in mAbs for the next five to six years. Currently, Petersen noted, there are 7 billion L of mAb capacity when the world will need 12.5 billion based on projections of growth in demand from ADCs for Alzheimer’ s treatments as well as GLP-1s.
Dynamic expansion
Jennifer Cannon, president of commercial operations for pharmaceutical sciences at Thermo Fisher Scientific, agreed that,“ it is a very dynamic time right now, from the perspectives of geopolitics and funding. Access to new technologies has widened, with new modalities”. However, she said, it is also an apprehensive time, so Thermo Fisher has talked with customers about their needs over the next five years.
The company is expanding in every area of its portfolio, both DS and DP, notably biologics, OSD forms and clinical trials, and was already diversifying geographically before COVID. It is adding four 5,000 L bioreactors at St Louis and will add four more of 2,000 L for a total of 16. Others include high-speed and development lines for ADCs and additional sterile fill-finish lines in the US and Europe, giving it 47.
Since the launch of the Accelerator Drug Development project at CPHI Worldwide 2024, Thermo Fisher has been integrating its 60-strong CDMO site network and the CRO capabilities, which is marketed as an end-toend service that can greatly reduce timelines in drug development. As part of this, it is spending $ 1.5 billion on digital enablement for better visibility at site level.
SK Pharmteco also has diverse capacity across three continents. Joyce Fitzharris, head of small molecule in Europe, announced that the superstructure has been completed on a $ 35 million investment at Swords, Ireland, with 25,000 L of small molecule API capacity. It is expected to be open in January 2026.
The company is also investing $ 10 million to expand ADC capabilities in Swords and will soon open a $ 2.2 million cGMP suite at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, to produce plasmids, viral vectors, and other materials for cell and gene production. All this is dwarfed, however, by the $ 260 million being spent at Daejong in SK Pharmateco’ s home base of South Korea.
MAY / JUN 2025 SPECCHEMONLINE. COM
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