SAFC expands liquid media and reagents Centres of Excellence
Irvine and St Louis facilities to be harmonised
SAFC is to extend its network of global 'Centres of Excellence' designed specifically to support the seamless upstream and downstream production of liquid cell culture reagents, including media, feeds and purification buffers at its St Louis, Missouri site and its Irvine, Scotland facility.
Together with the recently announced dry powder media manufacturing expansion at its facility in Lenexa, Kansas, these investments are expected to optimise manufacturing and supply chain to better serve the biopharmaceutical industry.
The investments include the creation of an additional, dedicated Animal Component Free (ACF) area at the Irvine facility and totally segregated ACF and Animal Component Containing (ACC) facilities in St. Louis, providing a complete range of cGMP liquid manufacturing, with batch capacities ranging from 1 litre up to 10,000 litres across both sites. Construction at the Centres of Excellence is scheduled for completion in the last quarter of 2010, with product qualification taking place during the first quarter of 2011.
Harmonisation of these North American and European Centres of Excellence facilities around key market requirements for environmental control and segregation is expected to ensure global product consistency while providing customers with a robust and secure liquid reagents supply chain.
‘As the biopharma market continues to mature and place an increasing emphasis on efficiency, cost containment and increased regulatory compliance, SAFC will continue its strategy to invest in manufacturing capabilities and facilities that uniquely address these requirements,’ said SAFC President Gilles Cottier.
‘Our Irvine and St Louis facilities will be harmonised to function as full range, back-up contingency sites that support each other, improving our risk profile for aseptic liquids manufacturing on a global basis. By minimising product variability our aim is to reduce customer manufacturing costs while simultaneously enhancing their supply chain integrity.’