The Privately-owned contract research organisation (CRO) said the new laboratory has increased capacity for cell-based assays and immunochemistry, explaining that the investment was driven by customer demand.
Bob Nicholson, senior vice president of PPD Laboratories, told us “We added nearly 17,000 square feet of new vaccines laboratory space, giving us a total of about 70,000 square feet dedicated to vaccine support.”
He added that: “With the expanded lab, we are fully equipped to support testing of attenuated, inactivated, virus-like particle, subunit, toxoid, DNA and conjugate vaccines for a variety of biopharmaceutical clients."
Ongoing investment
Nicholson described the vaccine lab expansion as part of a series of investments PPD has made at the facility in recent months, which include enhancements to its genomics, immunochemistry and automation services offerings.
“The recent expansion of our vaccine sciences lab, coupled with previous enhancements to our biologics capabilities, builds on three decades of drug development expertise to support pharmaceutical and vaccine programs from pre-clinical through post-approval.
“The Richmond operation currently supports programs in traditional small molecule drugs, biologics, vaccines and biomarkers. Each is growing and contributing the annual revenue for our Richmond operation” said Nicholson.
PPD claims to have been involved in the development of 15 US FDA approved vaccines, including products for the prevention of mumps, measles, rubella, varicella, HPV, hepatitis A, influenza, rotavirus, pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis.