Chinese R&D and manufacturing site part of WuXi’s 14% growth plan
The integrated campus in Changzhou, about 110 miles west of Shanghai, will perform research, development and cGMP (current good manufacturing practices) production for clients. Operations will encompass early stage process development through to preclinical and clinical work to commercial production.
The company said the new construction aims to meet rapidly growing demand for manufacturing services, “which have quadrupled [WuXi’s] revenues in the past four years.” Wuxi’s Chairman and CEO Ge Li previously predicted year-over-year revenue growth of 14-16% for 2014, driven by its investments in manufacturing, R&D, sales and information technology.
API development
The Changzou facility will be constructed in phases and include both research manufacturing and commercial manufacturing facilities.
The first phase will be completed and operational by the end of 2015, said the company, and will double STA’s current manufacturing capacity. When the entire project is completed, the site is expected to triple present capacity and to have more than 1,500 employees, including chemists, production staff, and support staff.
“This project marks an important milestone in STA’s mission of building a fully integrated API development and manufacturing platform,” said Ge Li.
WuXi has ten facilities in China and six in the US. A cell therapy site in Philadelphia, US, is currently under construction and expected to become operational in Q2 of 2015.
The company’s VP for cell manufacturing, Alan Moore, told our sister site BioPharma-Reporter.com the company was expanding facilities because of a large number of clients moving from research manufacturing to large-scale production.
