Bristol-Myers Squibb--which startled the industry earlier this week with its plans to transition in a new R&D chief--has blueprinted a $250 million expansion of its biologics manufacturing facility in Devens, near I-495.
By Eric Palmer Ganesh Kaundinya, chief scientific officer at biologics and biosimilars developer Momenta Pharmaceuticals, doesn't mind a little regulatory uncertainty. For those responsible for mapping a manufacturing strategy for biosimilars, these uncertainties add to the pressure of an already complex and challenging endeavor. Read the report >> Brought to you by CMC Biologics
Asia has become a center for biologics manufacturing, in part, because governments in the region are offering up deals to attract players. It is a trend that experts believe will lead to innovations that will lower costs for manufacturing both novel biologics and biosimilars. India's Strides Arcolab has decided to tap that trend and will build a new plant in Malaysia.
A number of drugmakers have targeted the central Asian country of Kazakhstan as a good arena in which to expand and now the government says it will get into the game as well.
Novartis joins a growing number of drugmakers and contract manufacturers that see drugs based on cell cultures as one of the best bets of the future.
DSM Pharmaceutical Products has won another contract to feed the new biologics plant it is building with the help of government support in Australia.
Cancer immunotherapy research has once again topped the R&D charts as one of the hottest fields in biotech. And now MedImmune, the biologics arm of AstraZeneca, has teamed up with some prestigious research teams to come up with some revved up combo therapies using a few of their most promising antibodies.
Many biologics are notoriously expensive to produce, but genetically modified corn offers a potential alternative for producing complex protein drugs. And veteran Reuters scribe Ben Hirschler has chronicled one of the latest feats in "molecular farming," with scientists growing an enzyme drug for a rare genetic disease in transgenic corn.
Belgian drugmaker UCB Pharma has completed a €65 million ($84.8 million) biologics plant to take more control over the development and manufacturing of its biologics products.
The FDA has handed an approval to Teva for its biosimilar of the aging neutropenia drug Neupogen. But the significant barriers that lie between that treatment--tbo-filgrastim--and any kind of significant market share underscores just how slowly these new therapies will begin to reshape the U.S. drug market.