Life Technologies to build $20m cell culture facility in Scotland
Scottish Government support attracts investment over US and Asia competition
Global biotechnology company Life Technologies is to undertake a major expansion of the existing manufacturing facilities at its European, Middle East and Africa headquarters at Inchinnan near Glasgow.
The US$20m (€15.2m) investment will increase the company's capabilities to support the rising demand for its GIBCO cell culture products used for biological drug research, development and production, and secures the supply chain for Europe, Americas and Asia.
The company currently employs 500 people at the Inchinnan site, many in the manufacture of cell culture products used in biological drug production. Life Technologies expects to break ground at the Inchinnan site in 2013 and start to ship product from the facility in 2014.
This investment is linked to ongoing support from Scottish Enterprise to assist Life Technologies to enlarge its global manufacturing network for proprietary Advanced Granulated Technology (AGT) and dry powder media under the GIBCO brand, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
AGT media is used in a large number of commercial and late-phase drugs and provides biopharmaceutical customers and contract manufacturing organisations with a ready-to-use media format that eliminates time-consuming steps in media preparation and uses only animal origin free (AOF) components.
‘We are pleased to be partnering with the Scottish Government on this important project and are grateful for its support’ said Gregory T Lucier, chairman and ceo of Life Technologies. ‘Our investment in this facility now provides a secure, complementary supply chain source for media while also addressing the growing global demand for our cell culture media products, specifically AGT.’
