The deal will covers services for one of the products in the biopharma firm’s development portfolio and is expected to generate around SEK 8m ($1m) for the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO).
While the firm would not divulge the client, it told Biopharma-Reporter the extension was driven by expansions at its antibody production at its cGMP-certified facilities in Lund, Sweden.
“BioInvent works with antibodies and we also produce antibodies for our customers,” said SVP of Technical Operations, Kristoffer Rudenholm-Hansson. “We currently work with Wave systems with up to 500L working volume in manufacturing but are upgrading the facility now. This contract extension uses the current system.”
While the quantities produced will vary depending on process, Rudenholm-Hansson said a new 1,000L Single Use bioreactor (SUB) at the facility will – with a product titer of 3.5 g - be capable of generating more than 2 kg IgG as drug substance.
“From January 2017 we will expand our upstream capacity by installing 1,000L SUB. This will meet our projected needs for our own requirements for the coming years, and we will utilize any spare capacity for our current and potentially new customers.”
Production is fully based on single use technology and the firm does not use stainless steel or glass bioreactors.
The decision to install the new 1,000L SUB was due to the need “to expand our capacity and to move away from the size limitations that are connected with our current cell culture technology,” Rudenholm-Hansson added.