New contract manufacturer buys plant

Related tags Biotechnology

KBI BioPharma, a start-up biopharma contract manufacturer, has
signed an agreement to buy a facility in North Carolina that could
be online in 6-9 months.

KBI BioPharma, a biotechnology start-up that specialises in contract manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, has signed a deal to buy a 300,000-square-foot facility in Durham, North Carolina, that could be operating in as little as six to nine months.

The company's chief executive, Tony Laughrey, said that the former Mitsubishi semiconductor plant could readily be converted to KBI's needs, according to a report in the local News & Observer newspaper.

Existing infrastructure will reduce capital requirements as much as 40 per cent for the project's first phase, expected to cost $45 million (€40m). The facility has specialised water- and air-handling systems required in both semiconductor and biotech manufacturing.

KBI expects to hire 75 workers in its first two years, with total employment increasing to 550 by 2008.

In April, KBI was awarded a $1 million loan from the North Carolina Biotechnology Centre. The company said at the time that it was looking to raise $15 to $20 million from loans, as well as $5 to $8 million in venture financing. It now says that it has raised $6 million in venture funding and signed its first partnership with an unnamed pharmaceutical company.

KBI BioPharma is a spin-out company of Kinetic Biosystems​, an Atlanta-based developmental stage life-sciences company formed in 1997 to commercialise bioreactor technology developed by Dr. Heath Herman, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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