A SMALL DOSE

Cambrex expands pharma services in Edinburgh

Small molecule company Cambrex has completed an expansion of its solid form screening and crystallisation process development facility in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Described as a major expansion, the project has seen the facility’s total footprint doubled, with existing laboratory space refurbished as well.

“We have seen an increase in demand for services, and specifically for largerscale crystallisation projects, so this expansion increases our efficiency and ability to respond to these requests,” said Tom Loewald, chief executive officer of Cambrex. “The work we carry out at the Edinburgh site is one part of Cambrex’s integrated drug substance offering, and the investment increases our flexibility to work on projects at all stages of drug development.”

Cambrex’s Edinburgh site provides solid form development services for drug substance and drug product. Scientists at the site work on projects both as a standalone service to pharmaceutical customers, as well as with other Cambrex sites to offer an integrated process development service.

Due to the expansion, the site now holds an additional 13 fume cupboards in the laboratory, allowing the team to increase capacity and provide clients with larger process crystallisation development. The expansion will also enable Cambrex to recruit 40 more scientists with the potential for further growth in the future.

This expansion increases our efficiency and ability to respond to these requests. CellGenix completes second phase facility expansion

Materials supplier CellGenix has completed the second phase of a facility expansion designed to increase capacity for cytokines.

The company has implemented an automated filling and freeze-drying line, as well as increasing its bulkware production footprint, in order to increase its finished product capacity for cytokines. CellGenix hopes the expansion enables it to meet the fast-growing demand for critical raw and ancillary materials as more customers reach late-stage clinical development and technology therapeutics company MyBiotics has received €2 million from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Program. The funding will support the development of a novel technology enabling efficient delivery of personalised probiotics to prevent gutrelated diseases and recover damaged gut microbiota. commercialisation of their cell and gene therapies.

The newly expanded facility enables CellGenix to streamline its production processes. The automated filling process also provides increased accuracy and reduced risks, which further increases the safety of its preclinical and GMP cytokines.

It follows the company’s first expansion phase in 2018, during which CellGenix added additional space and personnel in its quality control, R&D, logistics and warehouse departments. By

CellGenix is now well prepared for the future growth of the cell and gene therapy market.

Microbiome company awarded €2m to develop personalised probiotics delivery

Microbiome

finishing both expansion MyBiotics has developed robust culturing, fermentation and delivery technologies for generating a highly stable and diverse bacterial community that can be efficiently delivered to the gut potentially restoring microbiome equilibrium.

Currently available probiotic products may have limited clinical impact due to the low survival rates of the delivered bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. This significantly reduces the ability of probiotic bacteria to impact the microbial diversity of the gut, thus failing to create a healthier community of bacteria.

The company will now develop multi-strain collections of human bacteria, enabling the generation of effective, personalised,

phases, CellGenix hopes it has strengthened its position as a leading supplier for large scale manufacturing in the cell and gene therapy space.

“The expansion of our facility is a result of the robust, sustainable, and profitable growth, generated by long standing and trustful customer relationships we achieved over many years. CellGenix is now well prepared for

proprietary, microbial nature-driven, enhanced technology combined with microbes with potential health benefit, holds the potential to greatly improve existing probiotic solutions,” stated David Daboush, human-bacteria based probiotics. “MyBiotics’ technology enables the transformation of beneficial bacteria to clinically efficient products. Our the future growth of the cell and gene therapy market. It supports our goal to further establish CellGenix as a key provider in the fight against disease, preferred supplier or raw and ancillary materials and trusted partner for large scale manufacturing of cell and gene therapies,” said Felicia Rosenthal, chief executive officer at CellGenix.

CEO of MyBiotics Pharma. “The Horizon 2020 Program grant is a significant validation and strong vote of confidence in MyBiotics and will support our development of more effective, next generation probiotics,” added Daboush.

VETTER MOVES INTO NEW HEADQUARTERS

Global contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) Vetter has moved into its new headquarters in Ravensburg Germany.

Vetter has invested around €50 million in the building which is designed for 1,000 employees and contains office space, the new ATRIUM company restaurant, a cafeteria and about 40 conference rooms. Vetter states the move to the new headquarters, known as Ravensburg Vetter Kammerbruehl, was made in response to the continuous growth of headcount and changing circumstances.

“We are relying on sustainable and futureoriented activities with the focus on our customers and their patients,” managing director Peter Soelkner said.

The company’s former headquarters has been modified to be used as a training centre where it will offer employee qualification programmes and individual development opportunities on a continuous basis. Vetter is also developing its other sites, with a new a new combination building for manual visual inspection and secondary packaging starting operations at its Ravensburg Vetter Sued / Vetter Secondary Packaging site. “Part of our 360-degree approach includes investments in the expansion of our development capacities,” added Soelkner. “We have observed a steady increase in demand from our customers as well as ever-more complex requirements for modern compounds.”

The company is also planning a new cleanroom for the manufacturing of prefilled syringes at the Schuetzenstrasse site in 2021 and is wanting to further expand on its quality control.

“We want to provide sufficient resources for the important step of final quality control and, at the same time, create greater flexibility,” managing director Thomas Otto said. “These actions will even better enable us to offer our customers either manual or automatic visual inspection depending on individual batch sizes and special characteristics of their

products.”