GeneDesign, Japanese contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), held the grand opening of the facility in Osaka, Japan, on April 5, prior to CPhI North America. The 2,000m² building will improve the company’s production capacity.
GeneDesign, a nucleic acid drug manufacturer who provides custom oligonucleotides for the biopharmaceutical industry, was acquired by Ajinomoto in 2016.
As stated by Ajinomoto, the facility “will provide a Class 100,000 clean area for cGMP manufacturing of oligonucleotide APIs, a multipurpose room to custom synthesize heavily modified oligonucleotides, and the world's largest solid phase oligonucleotide synthesizer, OligoProcess, the first of this type of machine to be installed in Japan”.
The development center also houses process development labs to support manufacturing activities and R&D labs for the development of novel oligonucleotide manufacturing technologies.
At the same time as the production facility opening, Ajinomoto announced the integration of the two companies, stating GeneDesign has now joined the global organization.
The investment in its subsidiary’s facility is part of broader investment plan, with Ajinomoto recently announcing an investment of $100m (€88m) to expand its facilities in Belgium and the US.