Wacker doubles production area at biologics plant

Published: 8-Mar-2010

Wacker Chemie officially opens its new biologics plant in Jena, Germany.

Wacker Chemie has officially opened its new production facility for pharmaceutical proteins, or biologics in Jena, Germany.

The firm says the expansion will enable it to meet growing demand for biologically manufactured pharmaceuticals used to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis, among other indications.

The expansion, together with a building for process development and quality control completed last year, brings the total investment at the plant to Euro 18m.

Wacker has almost doubled the production area at the GMP-certified site. A new facility for product purification also allows up to three times higher product yields per batch.

"Demand for advanced biotech products is growing worldwide. Innovative, biotechnological processes such as Wacker's ESETEC secretion system allow us to meet demand and continue to shape the developments in biotechnology here in Germany," said Auguste Williams, a member of Wacker's Executive Board.

"We now have an ideal system for developing the sophisticated processes and analytical techniques of modern, microbe-based biologics," added Thomas Maier, managing director of Wacker Biotech.

"This allows Wacker to optimise the entire process chain, from lab operations to industrial GMP production. Customers thus benefit from a full process and analysis package provided from a single source. And with the expansion of our production capacities, we can now make our innovative ESETEC secretion technology available to more customers."

Traditional production methods aside, the focus of the new unit is on Wacker's ESETEC and DENSETEC proprietary technologies, which enable simpler, more cost-efficient and high-yield production of biologics for the pharmaceuticals industry.



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