Fujifilm made a massive investment in a former Biogen biologics facility in Denmark last year to help realize its global CDMO expansion plans. With that nearly $1 billion check behind it, Fujifilm is shelling out an almost equally gigantic infusion to double capacity at the Danish plant.
Fujifilm will dole out a whopping $928 million at a former Biogen site in Denmark it acquired in August for $890 million, the Japanese drugmaker said Tuesday. The company’s major capital outlay for its Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies CDMO site will dramatically expand the facility’s bulk drug manufacturing capacity, finish/fill capabilities and packaging output by fall 2023.
The expansion plans include bringing six new 20,000-liter mammalian cell bioreactors online, doubling the facility’s total. Fujifilm will also add the Denmark site’s first fill/finish production line by summer 2023, which will be capable of producing 35 million units per year. Finally, the CDMO will add a new packaging line by spring 2022 that will include automatic labeling and the ability to assemble multiple types of auto-injectors.
With large-scale manufacturing capacity in place, Fujifilm said it will be able to offer end-to-end production services for its clients.
“With the addition of world-class assets enabling us to scale production volumes to fit both small and large batches, the capital infusion allows us to deliver on our promise to support our partners from pre-clinical through to commercialization,” Fujifilm Diosynth CEO Martin Meeson said in a release.
Fujifilm hopes its massive investment will bump revenue for its bio-CDMO business to $928 million per year by March 2022—and then double that to $1.86 billion per year by 2026.
Fujifilm’s infusion into its Denmark site comes weeks after the Japanese drugmaker agreed to set aside manufacturing space at the site for the Bill Gates-funded COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.
In late April, Fujifilm agreed to dedicate room at the Hillerød, Denmark, facility and “work with a selected pharmaceutical partner in supporting the swift manufacture and dedicated supply for patients with COVID-19 in lower-income countries,” the drugmaker said in a release.
The deal set aside an unspecified production volume for 2021 with options for the following years.
Fujifilm agreed to buy the Biogen biologics production facility in Denmark with about 800 employees in August. The 90,000-liter capacity facility is the fourth biologics manufacturing site for Tokyo-based Fujifilm Diosynth, a partnership between Fujifilm and Mitsubishi.
Fujifilm Diosynth’s Denmark site is just one part of a global expansion effort that kicked into high gear after Meeson’s promotion to the CEO role in April.
In March, the CDMO opened a new $21 million, 32,300-square-foot human induced pluripotent stem cells manufacturing facility. The company also recently started a $35 million expansion of its biomanufacturing facility at its College Station, Texas, site to provide for late-phase and commercial manufacturing of gene therapies and other advanced products.
