July 28, 2020 – Sekisui (Burlington, MA) announced the decision to invest £14.4 million (about U.S. $18.7 million) in its biopharma CDMO business aimed at cGMP microbial capacity expansion at the existing site in Maidstone, Kent, UK. The expansion is expected to be completed by the second half of 2022.
The facility expansion and cGMP upgrades will enable Sekisui to take on drug substance contract manufacturing for programs entering the clinical trial phase. The new cGMP certified microbial fermentation and purification suites will accommodate production scales up to 1,000L, complementing its existing capabilities which range from 20L to 5,000L fermentation scale. Previously part of Genzyme Corporation, Sekisui Diagnostics’ Enzyme business in 2017 launched its microbial biopharma CDMO service offering, BioProduction by Sekisui.
This investment is part of the company’s long-term investment strategy to grow its share of the microbial biopharma CDMO market and follows the investment of $1.9 million in Sekisui’s new Bioprocess Innovation Center, which was completed in 2019.