FUJIFILM Corporation (President: Kenji Sukeno) announced plans to invest approximately JPY 10 billion (approximately $90 million U.S. dollars) in order to expand its Bio Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) Business. This investment will include the expansion of existing production facilities at its North Carolina location to support the growing needs of its customer portfolio. Further investments are planned at the company’s other locations; details shall be announced in first quarter of 2019.
FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies (FDB), is a leading CDMO with demonstrated leadership in the development and manufacture of recombinant biopharmaceuticals and gene therapies. Fujifilm is investing in FDB’s facilities to increase production capacity to meet its growing customer demands. This new round of investments will include the addition of 2000L single use cell culture manufacturing trains, cell culture purification suites and new microbial recovery suites to its existing facilities in North Carolina. These additions will increase cell culture manufacturing capacity by approximately 25% and microbial capacity by approximately 50% at its North Carolina location. The company expects that the increased production capacity will be ready for cGMP manufacture by early 2020.
“We provide high-quality products and services through leading-edge, proprietary technologies in various fields,” said Takatoshi Ishikawa, Director, Senior Vice President, General Manager of Bio CDMO Division, FUJIFILM Corporation. “Fujifilm is dedicated to supporting the biologics industry by providing flexible manufacturing capacity that supports our clients in getting medicines to patients.”
Biopharmaceuticals are gaining an increasing share of the overall pharmaceuticals market due to the potential of therapies to produce strong results with less side-effects. Biopharmaceutical production requires the use of advanced manufacturing technologies and facilities for culturing, separation and purification. Due to the complicated nature of manufacturing biopharmaceuticals, an increasing number of pharmaceutical companies and bio-venture companies are outsourcing process development and manufacturing activities to CDMOs with excellent technologies and facilities. The contract development and manufacturing market for biopharmaceutical is projected to achieve growth of more than 8% per annum* accordingly.
Fujifilm has committed to grow its CDMO business to meet a JPY100 billion sales target by March 2024. This target will be achieved by delivering to its customers an industry leading service, which draws from its rich culture of innovation and leverages best practices in operational excellence developed through its extensive manufacturing experience across a wide range of businesses and technologies. Fujifilm’s culture of innovation and reputation of manufacturing excellence leverage synergies between the various business units to ensure rapid growth to better serve the healthcare community.
