WuXi PharmaTech broke ground on a new facility in Philadelphia for the manufacture of cell therapies. It is expected to become operational in the second quarter of 2015.
The new facility will consist of 45,000 square feet of clinical and commercial manufacturing space and will supplement WuXi's existing 16,000-square-foot cGMP cell therapy manufacturing facility. According to Ge Li, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of WuXi PharmaTech, the expansion will support growing customer demand with single-source contract development and cGMP manufacture capabilities for allogeneic and autologous cell-based therapeutics. The new facility will be built using advanced modular design, with flexible clean room technology, disposable equipment, and microcarrier cell culture systems, he added.
Located in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the new facility will complement WuXi's existing facility and capabilities, which include analytical chemistry, cell banking, cell characterization, molecular biology, and lot release testing.
Earlier this month WuXi received an honorable mention award at the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering’s 2014 Facility of the Year Awards for the company's recently completed cGMP cell-culture-based biologics production facility in WuXi. It is the first company in China to receive this honor.
