The contract research organisation (CRO) unveiled a scheme to expand its production facility in Bothwell near Seattle in September. CMC had planned a five-fold capacity increase by 2010, doubling its 141-strong manufacturing workforce.

CMC president Gustavo Mahler told the Seattle Times that: “Postponing the project enables us to forego significant spending and helps ensure that we retain sufficient resources to better weather the economic slowdown.”

Mahler explained that: “The current challenges of the global economy, we must carefully manage our resources” and added that the firm has not issued a new completion date for the project and would not be doing so in the near future.

CMC’s position must be particularly galling for the firm given the expected growth of the monoclonal antibody market in the next few years, particularly as it was named among the key industry players in a recent Global Industry Analyst (GIA) study.

In 1994 the only monoclonal antibody drug to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was Eli Lilly’s ReoPro (abciximab) for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Since then the agency has cleared 20 additional therapies, helping expand the market to some $21.9bn last year.

The increasing demand for novel therapies pharmerging markets like India and China is expected to further accelerate the growth of the sector, particularly given the growing prevalence of cancer in the region.