
Manufacturing roundup: WuXi STA unveils new facility; Purdue University nets $3M grant for zero-waste pharma manufacturing
CDMO WuXi STA has been on the move recently by breaking ground on a facility in the US, and the company is showing no signs of stopping its expansion drive.
The company announced that it has opened a new sterile lipid nanoparticle manufacturing site at its campus in the city of WuXi, China. The facility has a modular layout, allowing for flexibility in the manufacturing process, and can produce 10 to 50 liters per batch.
“We are pleased to support our partners with this state-of-the-art LNP facility to meet the growing demand for advanced injection dosage forms. We will continue to expand our CRDMO platform’s capacity and capabilities to enable our partners to accelerate more innovative drugs to market for patients worldwide,” said WuXi STA CEO Minzhang Chen in a statement.
Purdue University team nets grant to investigate more sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing
Researchers at Purdue University have secured a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate cost-effective, zero-waste initiatives for pharma manufacturing operations.
According to the university, current manufacturing can create a significant amount of unused medicines and toxic waste, causing environmental damage and reducing manufacturers’ profits.
“Our project is focused on creating a large-scale framework and cyberinfrastructure that can help manufacturing networks to perform more sustainably. We’ll start our proof of concept with the pharmaceutical industry, given its high impact on the American manufacturing system during Covid,” said Shweta Singh, project leader and associate professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Environmental and Ecological Engineering, in a statement.
The project will aim to build a “circular economy design computational tool,” which will help companies reuse resources while also reducing the flow of waste, and stands in stark contrast to the more linear forms of production in the industry.
The model has already been tested in agrarian-based settings, and Singh’s team is working with partners in the industry to develop and test the algorithms.
The team will also work to develop a pricing algorithm as well for the recycling of waste medicines for manufacturing.
Ori Biotech partners up with Resilience and MD Anderson joint venture
The joint venture between Resilience and MD Anderson to create a manufacturing site for cell therapies has pulled in a new partner.
Manufacturing technology company Ori Biotech has partnered up with the Cell Therapy Manufacturing Center (CTMC), the joint venture that aims to create new cell therapies to fight cancer. The collaboration will set its sights on industrial manufacturing processes for cell therapies.
According to Ori, the partnership will include combining its technology platform with the manufacturing center’s capabilities. While the partnership has zeroed in on working on one cell therapy now, it plans to work on other Car-T processes and determine its “technical feasibility.”
The partnership will also allow the CTMC to gain pre-commercial access to Ori’s technology.
“Ori and CTMC have specifically partnered with the goal of increasing patient access to potentially life-saving cell therapies. This partnership will have a considerable impact on the cell therapy field by implementing innovative, digitally enabled process discovery and automated manufacturing solutions,” said Jason Foster, Ori Biotech’s CEO, in a statement.
Manufacturer acquired by Singapore-based private equity firm
Everstone Capital has acquired a controlling stake in the manufacturing company Softgel Healthcare. Softgel, an Indian-based dosage form manufacturing operation, creates over-the-counter pharmaceutical products — mainly probiotics and soft gelatin capsules.
According to Singapore-based Everstone Capital, the acquisition will aim to build up Softgel and provide the company with more resources. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Softgel, part of the Madras Pharma Group, also maintains eight manufacturing sites and R&D operations.
“The company, with its strong R&D capabilities and ability to manufacture products in advanced dosage forms, is well positioned to be a global leader in the CDMO segment. We believe that Everstone’s value creation playbook will help SHPL realize its global goals and propel the company into its next phase of growth,” said Sameer Sain, Everstone Group CEO in a statement.