Excelsyn Engineering Technology wins

Following on from a successful front engineering design study, UK company Excelsyn Engineering Technology has been awarded a £2.2m (US$3.8m) contract to design and construct an expansion to a cGMP vaccine production facility in Livingston, Scotland, for Austrian vaccines company Intercell.

The expanded facility will give Intercell increased manufacturing capacity to meet the growing market expectations for its new IC51 vaccine against Japa-nese Encephalitis (JE).

Excelsyn will be responsible for the turnkey delivery of the facility, including construction design services, project management, procurement and delivery of all systems and equipment, on-site construction and installation, complete with commissioning and validation services.

IC51 is a prophylactic vaccine against Japanese Encephalitis that entered Phase III pivotal clinical trials in September 2005 and is one of Intercell's two lead products. The second is a therapeutic vaccine against Hepatitis C, which is currently undergoing a Phase II clinical trial.

In addition to its lead products Intercell has built up a preclinical pipeline of vaccines against other infectious diseases, including a Staphylococcus aureus vaccine, a Group A Streptococcus vaccine, a travelers' diarrhoea vaccine and a Tuberculosis prophylactic vaccine. Therapeutic antibodies are another potential application for its antigen platform.

This is a flagship project for our Engineering Technology business," said Excelsyn Group chairman Ian Shott.

The Intercell contract marks the latest in a series of business wins for Excelsyn Engineering Technology in the biotech sector. The company recently announced that it had taken a stake in Angel Biotechnology and is currently appointed on the design and build of Angel's state-of-the-art fermentation facility at its Cramlington UK site. In July last year Excelsyn announced the completion of a major design and construction project at Cobra Biomanufacturing's £5m Oxford facility.