Almost all of the investment will be ploughed into FDB's site in Hillerød, Denmark, which Fujifilm acquired from Biogen in August 2019.
Some 450 jobs will be created at the Danish campus, to add to the 1,055 employees currently on-site, said the company.
Additional bioreactors
The investment will make the Hillerød facility the largest end-to-end CDMO in Europe, reported Fujifilm, with the addition of eight 20,000L bioreactors and two downstream processing streams. That site will, thus, be able to provide a total of 20 20,000L bioreactors for drug substance production complimented by drug product and finished goods services.
Sustainable production enhancements at the Danish plant will include installation of an electric rather than a conventional boiler powered by natural gas, with FDB saying the move would, thereby, remove that site's operational dependency on fossil fuels.
In addition, FDB is investing in programs aimed at reduction of water consumption.
Texas site to benefit
A percentage of the financial outlay will also go towards the CDMO’s single-use cell culture manufacturing site in Texas, US, enabling expansion of services at that facility. The organization is planning to install its SymphonX equipment to enable cGMP MaruX continuous processing at that facility.
In MaruX, it said, the latest advancements in upstream and downstream continuous biomanufacturing have been combined to form an integrated end-to-end process that allows for a more efficient production of antibodies with consistent quality.
FDB’s SymphonX is an automated and customizable technology platform for end-to-end downstream purification developed in-house through its process development and manufacturing innovation program. The system provides the connectivity, integration and advanced automation needed to finally realize the high-productivity promise of continuous processing, said the CDMO.
A spokesperson told us that, for both FDB sites, all innovation will be online by 2026.
Growing healthcare business
In recent years, Fujifilm has announced investments of over US$7.1bn (€6.7bn) to grow its CDMO business unit globally.
For the year ended March 31, 2022, the group reported global revenues of approximately US$21bn, with the entire healthcare business unit segment growing into the largest operating segment of Fujifilm for the first time, in terms of both revenue and operating income.
