SGS boosts bioanalytical capacity at French lab
SGS will invest $2.9m (€2.1m) to add 500 meters of laboratory space and new bioanalytical testing technologies, which will be installed over the next few months according to general manager Alain Renoux.
Renoux told Outsourcing-pharma that: "We have ordered two of the latest generation of mass spectrometers (MS), one of which is due to be received in December and the other in February 2011.”
He went on to say that in addition to the two new MS units, the twentieth and twenty-first at the site, SGS will install a fourth multiplex biomarker analysis platform to further enhance its capacity for immunoassays.
In a press statement SGS said that: “The investment in the Poitiers laboratory will increase the analytical development capabilities and facilitate extensive GLP services for large molecules.”
The expansion, which will also see the firm hire 50 additional analysis staff over the next three years, is part of a concerted effort to boost capacity for the analysis of biologic drugs.
Speaking at SGS’ Biotech Day in Wavre, Belgium in October spokesman Cedric Volanti told Outsourcing-pharma that: “The future of the industry lies with biologics” adding that “there is great opportunity for growth in serving this segment of the market
The process actually began in August last year with the opening and expansion of units in Toronto, Canada and Illinois, US to add more bioanalysis testing capacity.
More recently SGS acquired UK based contract chemical testing company M-Scan, adding four testing facilities in the US, Korea, India and Singapore to its 16-laboratory strong global network.
