Biotechpharma UAB, a CDMO headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, is investing more than €50 million in manufacturing expansion. The plan includes augmenting fermentation capacity to 5,000L along with an additional process development laboratory.
Completion of the plant, which should be operational in Q4 2020, will result in an increase in Biotechpharma’s volume capacity by nearly a factor of two.
Dr Vladas Bumelis, Chairman of the Board, explained the expansion comes amid growing global demand. He pointed out to the need for flexible and responsive outsourcing partners "that are able to support the full product lifecycle, from upstream and downstream process development and optimisation to GMP manufacturing of drug substance and formulated drug product".
The new plant in Europe, located at the company’s site in Vilnius, Lithuania, will contain a new line of bioreactors for microbial fermentation at 5,000L scale and the necessary equipment for downstream processing operations.
Flexible facility design will also allow for increased mammalian cell culture production capacities in addition to the already existing two lines of 1000L and 2000L for mammalian cell production, both equipped with single-use bioreactors.
“We are thrilled to announce this latest expansion of our infrastructure, as it will allow us to better support our customers’ biological development programmes with quality, speed and flexibility of service,” commented Giedrius Žunda, CEO of Biotechpharma.
