Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies to expand biologics manufacturing capacity

As part of $850 million investment package, CDMO will double US cell culture production for recombinant vaccines and increase UK gene therapy production tenfold

Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies (FDB) will invest 90 Billion Yen ($850 million) to significantly increase its biologics manufacturing capacity at its sites in the US and UK, the CDMO’s parent company, Fujifilm, has announced.

The company said the expansions – scheduled to begin operations by late 2023 -- will double cell culture production for recombinant vaccines in the US while in the UK gene therapy production will be increased ten-fold, cell culture capacity will be tripled and microbial fermentation output at the existing 5,000L scale facility will be doubled.

The UK cell culture expansion will also include cGMP capacity for continuous manufacturing.

Process and analytical development capacity will also be strategically added as part of the investment package, FDB said.

The announcement brings the total investments made by Fujifilm in FDB since 2011 to $5.5 billion.

Further details on the capabilities of the new and expanded facilities will be disclosed upon conclusion of initial engineering studies that are currently ongoing.

“Fujifilm will never stop in its relentless pursuit to develop new technologies and provide the necessary manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of our customers and accelerate the growth of its Bio CDMO business,” said Teiichi Goto, president of Fujifilm Corporation in a statement.

FDB said that market growth for CDMO services, including outsourcing process development, analytical development, bulk drug substance manufacturing, fill/finish and finished goods (packaging) production, is expected to continue due to increasing demand for biotherapeutics such as antibodies, gene therapy treatments and vaccines against new infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

The CDMO has sites in Teesside, UK, RTP, North Carolina, College Station, Texas and Hillerød, Denmark.