Catalent and Abzena both recently announced substantial investments into new biologics facilities. Catalent is spending up to $160 million to build a new manufacturing facility near Oxford, UK. Catalent plans to equip the facility with “state-of-the-art capabilities for the development and manufacture of biologic therapies and vaccines, including mRNA, proteins and other advanced modalities,” and hopes to start servicing customer programs from the new facility before the end of 2022. According to Catalent, it has expertise in biosimilar development and manufacturing, with multiple biosimilar products on the market utilizing its technology.
Abzena’s new facility just opened and is in the U.S., near Abzena’s manufacturing center in San Diego. The new facility is focused on biologics testing and will offer “Abzena’s partners access to cell-based and PCR safety assays; and viral clearance studies to support their IND, IMPD, BLA and MAA applications.” According to Abzena, with this latest investment, it now offers “all services appropriate for research cell banks, characterization of master and working cell banks, end-of-production of cell cultures, and bulk drug substances.” Abzena had announced last year that it had partnered with BioXpress Therapeutics to support the development and manufacture of biosimilars for global customers. The opening of the new facility marks Abzena’s sixth site across the globe.
