Astellas Pharma (TSE: 4503) plans to establish a biotech campus in South San Francisco, California, as the core of its West Coast R&D operations. Located near Genentech and Verily Life Sciences facilities, the site at 480 Forbes Boulevard will consolidate several Astellas business units and functions currently based throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The…
Mettler Toledo Rainin expands facilities in Vacaville, California
Liquid-handling instrument firm Mettler-Toledo Rainin, LLC has expanded its presence in the Interchange Business Park in Vacaville, California, a biomanufacturing hub 35 miles southeast of Sacramento. “We are excited to expand our manufacturing operations in Vacaville,” said Werner Maas, Rainin general manager, in a news release. “The high cost and scarcity of real estate in the central…
Elemental Machines aims to enlist lab freezers in fight against climate change
LabOps intelligence platform developer Elemental Machines is vying to boost enrollment in the Freezer Challenge, an annual competition intended to reduce the environmental impact of lab refrigerators, freezers and cold rooms. Organized by the nonprofit My Green Lab and the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL), the Freezer Challenge attracts thousands of scientists internationally with a…
Pfizer seeks to comply with voluntary Net-Zero Standard by 2040
The voluntary Net-Zero Standard asks organizations to reduce emissions to near-zero levels by 2050 and neutralize any residual emissions. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) has announced its intent to meet that benchmark by 2040. Pfizer intends to reduce its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 95% and its value chain emissions by 90% from 2019 levels by 2040. To…
Fujifilm to spend $1.6B to bolster cell culture manufacturing services
The multinational conglomerate Fujifilm will invest $1.6 billion to improve and ramp up the cell culture manufacturing services of its CDMO subsidiary Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies. Most of the investment will focus on a site in Hillerød, Denmark. A site in College Station, Texas, will also benefit from a funding injection. The investment will increase the…
Wyzo high-speed pick-and-place sidebot wins design awards
The robotics firm Wyzo (Ecublens, Switzerland) has announced that it has won two design awards. The first is the Design Award in the Industry & Tools Category from iF while the second is the Best of the Best Award from Red Dot for Industrial Equipment, Product Design and Robotics. “These awards show how important it is to take care of the…
Purdue University launches institute for advanced manufacturing of pharmaceuticals
Thanks to a donation from pharma industry veteran William D. Young, Purdue University has announced plans to launch a new institute dedicated to furthering pharmaceutical manufacturing to reduce costs and bolster access to new biotech drugs. The William D. Young Institute for Advanced Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals is named after the eponymous chemical engineer, who graduated…
Sanofi introduces its first digital accelerator
Digital transformation has been a buzzword among enterprise companies and business consultants for the past roughly five years. Conservative industries such as the pharmaceutical sector, however, have had a broadly tentative attitude toward transformation. The situation began to change during the pandemic, however. Now, Sanofi (Nasdaq:SNY) has launched an AI-focused digital accelerator focused on developing…
Cambridge Pharma launches with UK plant in Cambridge Research Park
The contract manufacturing firm SMC Ltd. has opened a new pharmaceutical development subsidiary known as Cambridge Pharma in Cambridge Research Park. The Cambridge Pharma facility will include sterile fill-finish offerings, a process development laboratory and an analytical laboratory. The company can fill batches of 100 to 10,000 units. It also will offer process development, scale…
Pfizer to spend $120M to make COVID-19 oral treatment in U.S.
Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) announced today that it will invest $120 million into its Kalamazoo, Michigan facility to support U.S.-based production of its COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir). The investment is expected to create more than 250 additional, high-skilled jobs at the Kalamazoo site. The money will expand the production of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and registered…