Capsugel has received certification for its Licaps liquid-fill capsule production facility in Greenwood, South Carolina from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), a division of the Australian Department of Health and Ageing.

Manufacturing facility certification is one of the steps required before a therapeutic product can be included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) and sold in the country.

Spain’s First Therapeutic Protein Plant Due in 2009

Spanish biotech company, 3P Biopharmaceuticals, is on course to complete its therapeutic protein manufacturing plant in Noain, Spain at the start of 2009.

The plant will be the first in Spain to produce therapeutic proteins for laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. An investment of €15m has been made to construct the plant.

Isogen Chooses Delaware for Facility

US-based Isogen has signaled its intent to build a $115m manufacturing facility in Delaware, which could generate up to 150 jobs.

Construction of the 200,000 sq ft facility is due to commence next year, following completion of the $2.5m design and site preparation process. Completion is penciled in for 2010.

The facility is intended to serve what Isogen believes is a niche in pharmaceutical outsourcing, the small to medium-scale manufacturing of injectable drugs for clinical trials and early commercial sales.

Isogen is currently leasing space in DuPont's Stine-Haskell Research Center and is planning to relocate its headquarters to the site in January.

Venus Remedies’ facility in India Received EMEA GMP Accreditation

Venus Remedies’ oncology facility has received EMEA GMP accreditation, making it one of very few Indian contract manufacturers licensed to make cancer treatments for the European market.

The award, which follows an inspection by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) in May, applies to both liquid and lyophilised cancer drugs produced at Venus’ facility in Baddi in Himachal Pradesh.

The plant, which is also compliant with good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards set out by the World Health Organization (WHO) and health bodies in countries including Latin America, Zimbabwe, Uganda and the Ukraine, is capable of producing around 10m vials of oncological drugs a year.

Venus said that the EMEA award will allow it to ramp up its targeting of European drugmakers, building upon the existing relationships it has established through its German subsidiary and manufacturing facilities.

Venus is also currently working on site transfer projects with companies in both Australia and Canada, specifically focussed on expanding the production of its range of cancer medications.

Additionally in April, Venus received accreditation from the General Foreign Trade Organisation (GFTO) of Syria, enabling it to begin targeting potential manufacturing clients in this emerging market and providing a further demonstration of the company’s ambitions on the global stage.

Siemens Building Radiopharma Sites in India

Siemens has outlined plans to establish itself as a leading provider of radiopharmaceuticals in India through the construction of numerous manufacturing facilities.

The company has already built a plant in Chennai on the southeastern coast of India and intends to construct a further four or five production facilities in the coming years.

Siemens is hoping to supply the growing demand for radiopharmaceuticals in India where 1m people are diagnosed with cancer every year.

The location of the new facilities has not yet been made public but it is known that Siemens intends to establish a base in each of India’s geographic regions and that three will be located near hospitals owing to the short lifespan of radiopharmaceuticals.

Siemens is currently working with the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to gain approval for the construction of the facilities.

Initially the Chennai facility will focus on the production of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), the imaging biomarker used in PET scans.

The range of products manufactured may be expanded at a later date to include radiopharmaceuticals that are currently in clinical trials for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and cardiac disorders.

Siemens advances in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease were made public last year, with the company claiming to have developed a prototype capable of differentiating between the early stages of Alzheimer’s and low-grade cognitive disturbances.

For now Siemens’ focus is on localizing manufacture of FDG to make it more affordable, allowing for PET scans to become more widespread in the nation.

At present India is ill-equipped to scan all its cancer patients and the number of those being diagnosed is likely to increase as the nation adopts an increasingly western lifestyle.

Siemens is hoping to sell 20 scanners a year, which would help alleviate India’s shortage and build on the company’s healthcare revenues of $250m a year in the nation.

Eli Lilly Sells Greenfield Campus for $50 Million; Hires Buyer Covance to Run Drug Development Operations

Drug development service provider Covance said it reached an agreement to acquire Eli Lilly & Co.’s 450-acre early drug development campus in Greenfield, IN, for $50 million. Covance will take over the facility — which includes 600,000 square feet of lab space — and its operations on or about Oct. 1, then provide 10 years of services to Lilly, retaining 260 Lilly workers, in a deal valued at $1.6 billion.

Lilly said it pursued the deal, announced Aug. 6, in order to cut costs by transforming its R&D model for new drugs. Covance has been in Indiana for more than 20 years, with a global central laboratory facility in Indianapolis, and a Phase I clinic in Evansville, Ind. The company has more than 1,000 employees based in the state.

“Covance will invest in this facility and maximize its capacity utilization by conducting substantial work with Lilly and bring in new work from other pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients. We expect the Greenfield site to be a key contributor to the future growth and success of Covance,” said Joe Herring, Covance’s chairman and CEO.

Under the agreement, Lilly will transfer responsibility to Covance for its non-GLP toxicology, in vivo pharmacology, quality control laboratory, and imaging services. In addition, the contract includes a committed level of clinical pharmacology, central laboratory, GLP toxicology studies, and clinical phase II-IV services.

Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, Covance has operations in more than 20 countries, and more than 9,000 employees worldwide.

Covance plans to make its labs available to other academic and commercial users for a fee — a development some expect will make Indiana more attractive to out-of-state life sciences employers.

The takeover does not remove Lilly from Greenfield or Hancock County, Ind. The Indianapolis-based pharma giant is finalizing plans to construct a new site for the world headquarters of Elanco, its Greenfield-based animal health division. Lilly will construct a building of about 125,000 square feet at one of two sites under consideration in the county. That facility will be completed in late 2009 or early 2010.

Elanco, a developer of animal health products, has been headquartered in Greenfield since 2003, though its R&D teams have been based there since 1954. Elanco employs about 360 employees, and will remain a division of Lilly.

Lilly also said it would transfer to other companies two additional operations: Its clinical trial monitoring work in the US and Puerto Rico to Quintiles, the world's largest pharmaceutical services company; as well as most of its US data management to i3, a global clinical research organization. A total of 200 more employees can apply for positions with Quintiles and i3, Todd told the newspaper, adding that another 136 jobs will be available at Lilly as a result of the reorganizations.

Wisconsin’s Germantown Approves $376K Sale of Land to Cambridge Major Laboratories

The Village Board of Germantown, Wis., has approved the sale of 5.38 acres in the village's Business Park east of the Cambridge Major Laboratories facility to the company, which has told officials it would use the land toward a possible future expansion.

Village President Tom Kempinski told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Germantown and Cambridge agreed to a price of $69,900 per acre — bringing the sale price to just over $376,000.

Cambridge Major Labs is a supplier of chemical ingredients to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. In June, the company broke ground in June on a $30 million, 120,000-square-foot manufacturing plant next to its headquarters. The expansion, projected to generate 45 jobs, is expected to be completed in August 2009.

University Research Park Announces Incubator for Downtown Madison

The University Research Park at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will develop in downtown Madison a 6,000-square-foot “urban research park” to be focused on medical devices and other high-tech startups.

Renovations to create the first 10 incubator suites and two conference rooms will begin later this summer at the urban research park, located in the former Marquip Building, 1245 East Washington Ave. The incubator will target startups in medical devices as well as information technology, engineering, and computer sciences.

The facility is set for completion in early 2009.

Biotech Firm Targeted Growth Plans $8 Million Tennessee Hub for Product Development, Global Expansion

Targeted Growth, an agricultural biotechnology company headquartered in Seattle, won a recommendation from the Shelby County (TN) Pre-Industrial Development Board in favor of its $8 million plan to build a product development and global expansion hub at Agricenter International, the urban farm and research test facility.

The Seattle, Wash.-based research company plans to construct a 41,000-square-foot glasshouse facility at Shelby Farms, for use in the development and production of new varieties of agronomic crops, including corn, soybeans, camelina and canola. TGI will also build a 15,000-square-foot building that will house three laboratories, and office space.

TGI was recommended for a six-year tax savings deal worth $599,197 by the board, which advises the full Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Corp., and the Shelby County Commission.

In return for its benefits, TGI told officials it would ramp up to full staffing in two years, and that its 40 staffers would be paid a median income of $47,250.

Pfizer’s Plan to Move R&D Center to Mission Bay Site

Pfizer’s plan to relocate its Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center to Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ Mission Bay campus in San Francisco resulted in a healthy new lease, and is a signal that the real estate investment trust successfully retooled its Bay Area portfolio earlier this year, executives said last week.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom joined Pfizer and Alexandria executives last week in announcing the drug maker’s 15-year lease for about 100,000 square feet — with an option for another 50,000 square feet — at 455 Mission Bay Blvd. South, the third building for which the REIT has broken ground at Mission Bay.

The Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center, or BBC, will move about 100 staffers to Mission Bay from South San Francisco, Calif., where the center and a company bought by Pfizer in 2006, Rinat Neuroscience, now occupy 106,000 square feet at 250 East Grand Ave., within the HCP-owned Britannia Pointe Grand Business Park.

At Mission Bay, the BBC will occupy all five floors of the building’s west wing, except for a 5,000-square-foot retail space; and will have an option to lease 50,000 square feet in the east wing. An atrium will connect both wings of the 210,000-square-foot building, which are being constructed simultaneously at an undisclosed cost, and slated for completion in the first quarter of 2010.

Foster Wheeler Awarded Conceptual & Basic Design of New Alcon Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in Singapore

Foster Wheeler Ltd. announced that its U.S. subsidiary, Biokinetics, Inc., along with Foster Wheeler's Singapore office, both part of its Global Engineering and Construction Group, has been awarded a contract by Alcon Laboratories Inc. to provide engineering and architectural services for the conceptual and basic design of its new 250,000 square foot manufacturing facility to be located in the Tuas Biomedical Park in Singapore. The plant will produce ophthalmic pharmaceuticals for distribution throughout Asia.

The Foster Wheeler contract value, most of which will be included in the company's third-quarter 2008 bookings, was not disclosed.

Biokinetics, Inc., acquired by Foster Wheeler in 2008, was established in 1996 and is a recognized industry leader in process systems design for the biopharmaceutical industry. Biokinetics is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with additional operations in Emeryville, California, USA and Carlow, Ireland.

Rio Rancho, NM Seeing Many Large Projects

On top of the Intel Fab 11X upgrade, Rio Rancho, NM, is seeing projects of a larger scale.

Presbyterian Healthcare Services held its official groundbreaking earlier this month on a $200 million project that will include a 340,000-square-foot full-service hospital and a 112,000-square-foot medical office building.

Other projects looming in the not-too-distant future include construction of a 218,000-square-foot building to house a call center for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard and yet another hospital to be developed by Plano, Texas-based Legacy Hospital Partners and the University of New Mexico Medical Group.

Haemonetics to Expand its Leetsdale, PA Manufacturing Operations

The company, which manufactures disposable plastic plasma collection devices for the medical industry, is building a cleanroom and installing new equipment in its existing 83,000-square-foot leased space.

IDT Biologika Wins the 2008 Facility of the Year Award Winner for Operational Excellence.

A combination of a trend-setting building design culminating in a multi-purpose facility, along with equipment innovation, flexibility, and effective and efficient project management resulted in IDT Biologika’ Facility for Production of Live Human Viral Vaccines winning the 2008 Facility of the Year Award Winner in Operational Excellence.

The Facility of the Year Award (FOYA) is an annual competition sponsored by ISPE, INTERPHEX and Pharmaceutical Processing magazine. The FOYA Program recognizes state-of-the-art projects that utilize new, innovative technologies to improve the quality of products, reduce the costs of producing high-quality medicines, and demonstrate advances in project delivery. Winners are selected in five distinct categories. The overall award winner is announced during ISPE’s annual meeting.

IDT Biologika GmbH (IDT) located in Dessau-Roßlau, Germany has its origin in the Bacteriological Institute of the Anhaltian Administrative Areas (BIAK) and was founded for the Free State of Anhalt in 1921.This institute was the starting point for veterinary and human medical research and drug manufacture in Dessau. Vaccine manufacture for commercial use started in 1925 and extended to become the Anhalt Serum Institute (ASID) until 1945.

Since 1993 IDT has been integrated as Impfstoffwerk Dessau-Tornau GmbH within the Klocke Group as an independent company. This company group has become a major player as a contract manufacturer for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. Its main headquarters, the Klocke Packing Service GmbH, is located in Weingarten/Baden, Germany.

As impressive as this new facility is, it’s not the first time IDT has taken on a project of this scope and technical sophistication. Indeed, it’s almost a matter of corporate culture that IDT takes on projects and clients of the most sophisticated nature. Dr. Ralf Pfirmann, Managing Director explains, “Ever since its privatization in 1993 IDT has been expanding its capabilities and asset footprint proactively to stay on the edge of technology development. This is mostly driven out of IDT´s own vaccine and pharmaceutical R&D, and to follow ever-increasing regulatory requirements and, of course, our customer’s requirements.”Some of the more recent projects IDT has undertaken include:

• Vaccine factory No. 1, completed in 2000

A pharmaceutical secondary manufacturing factory for state-of-the-art sterile filling capabilities focusing on parenterals as pre-filled syringes, vials, ampules and bottles. This facility comprises 11 filling lines of different types and capabilities in one large factory building operating in a highly flexible operational mode developed by IDT. Completed in 2004 this building involved a full reconstruction of an existing factory building leaving only the outside walls unchanged while everything else was implemented brand new.

In 2005 completion of a brand new packaging facility where final packaging, blistering, visual inspections, warehousing and preparation for logistics are performed. This building also uses state-of-the-art facility design and material flow concepts. All of these buildings have been inspected by international regulatory agencies such as the FDA and NIH as well as inspections by the company’s customers.? IDT has invested a total of € 200 million within the last 15 years building a highly modern and efficient biopharmaceutical site. It owns a vast piece of land in its location which offers excellent expansion options not only to itself but also to its international pharmaceutical customers who wish to run bio-pharmaceutical research and/or development and/or operations in a highly integrated fashion either by IDT or by themselves, while IDT supports all infrastructure from QA to energy supplies and waste water treatment. Dr. Pfirmann adds, “IDT has an excellent reputation with the federal and regional administrations and international regulatory bodies, allowing flexible and fast-track technical and economical solutions. We are also continuously investing in state-of-the-art equipment and even more importantly in highly qualified and highly educated staff.”

The award winning facility features many unique and interesting construction details. Much attention was paid to both the function of the facility and to its aesthetics. For example, since eggs play a large part in the production of vaccines a completely new and highly automated system for the processing of eggs is being used. Laser technology was implemented with a device developed in cooperation with the Institute of Technology Mittweida and the firm Laserform, setting standards for work done under sterile conditions. In addition, an automatic disinfection hose for the eggs, a laser for opening the eggs, a RABS for extracting the embryos, and the use of a hose-sealing system for securing all hose connections during production, help maintain sterile conditions. Large clean rooms classified B (10,000) and C (100,000) provide sufficient space for the long-term use of climate chambers for every temperature range, making virus production on various cell substrates and with different technologies possible.

Turning to the issue of facility aesthetics; the incorporation of color and transparency signal new ways of designing sterile production work environments. Clean rooms with glass walls, material locks with glass doors, and glassed-in passageways form flat surfaces, allow complete visibility, and meet the most rigorous standards for cleanliness. Trust in personnel and product is inspired through openness and transparency. Except for personnel locks, the whole production level consists exclusively of stainless steel and glass. The use of light and lively colors contribute to a pleasant work environment and the different colors designate the building’s various functional units. Material locks with glass double doors are sealed tightly with automatically inflatable seals.

When asked whether these features were implemented solely to produce the facility’s products or are just part of good facility design. Dr. Pfirmann responded, “All the features were implemented as part of good facility design, but with the only purpose to serve best practices in manufacturing, efficiency and cleaning.

He continued, “The facility is a multi-product and as such a multi-purpose facility. IDT possesses the ability to satisfy the most stringent cleaning and validation requirements both by its expertise as well as the new facility´s design.”

As with any facility, construction challenges are bound to crop up. With IDT incorporating so many new technologies cooperation between the company and its contractors was paramount. Dr. Pfirmann explains, “Several new and as such prototype solutions were implemented which posed major challenges both in original implementation as well as operation. These were resolved by extraordinarily cooperative planning and design by IDT and its infrastructure unit´s subcontractors in the design and prototyping phase, thus front loading all problem resolutions and excluding expensive failures after implementation. Extensive prototype modeling and testing was done as well.”

As a showcase for vaccine manufacturing, IDT’s facility features some very impressive technology:

Roller culture used for virus production has been fully automated in class A (100) clean rooms using robots. Achieving sub pressure in a class A (100) cabinet for virus handling posed particular challenge that was met and overcome.• Two production lines have different manufacturing technologies allowing production of viral vaccines for Phase III clinical testing and commercial production. On one line, there is an automated fumigation lock, automated laser technology for opening eggs (see photo), RABS for processing eggs, and wave fermentors for cell cultivation in suspension. Robots (see photo) for handling roller bottles for cell culture and virus propagation are located on the second line. Climate chambers with temperatures between -60°C and +40°C are also present.

The building’s concept consists of strict horizontal division of the areas into four levels. This guarantees the shortest route for the supply and waste systems and allows for optimal maintenance conditions. An open “hall” was created through hanging supports in the ventilation level which can be supplied at any point with necessary media. Since the frameless glass walls do not offer possibilities for installation, the electrical supply lines were laid in the walls’ stainless steel base.

From the beginning, a room served as a prototype with the relevant details and was continually supplemented as construction progressed.

Two production lines were integrated with state-of-the-art technology, also reflecting the latest in design concepts in terms of equipment. IDT is the first to use laser technology for automatically opening eggs for cell culture. The laser opener transports the opened eggs in a RABS for further processing.

All clean room areas Class A (100) including the robot systems are equipped with integrated continuous particle counting devices to monitor all aseptic operations.

The storage area is constantly held at -80°C for seed materials and intermediate products and is equipped with two independent cooling systems to assure appropriate backup.

Fully automated CIP/SIP for mobile vessels and continual waste water inactivation, represent the latest advances in pharmaceutical technology.

It’s fairly obvious that Dr. Pfirmman and his team have created a world-class facility. When asked what details or features of the facility he is most proud of he cites several including the company’s expanded capacities to produce viral vectors from process development through Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials and up to the manufacture of batches for Phase 3; unique transparent building features, manufacturing area adjacencies, material flow optimization, and equipment technologies that are anticipated to result in a four-fold increase in production capacity.

Personnel safety, always of major concern in any type of manufacturing facility, was of paramount importance in the new facility. Dr. Pfirman describes these features in detail, “Access to the building, various production areas and clean rooms is controlled by an electronic access system. The production process steps take place predominantly in a closed system and all handling of open virus material occurs under at least class II safety workbenches. Using robots during production of infectious material fulfills the currently highest level of containment, thus protecting employees against infection. Performing the process in sub pressure is another important factor to ensure personnel safety. Connecting, disconnecting and sealing hoses are done at high temperature with hose-sealing devices and eye washes in sterile disposable bottles are, in an emergency, better alternatives than conventional systems.”

These impressive features speak to the operational and safety details of the facility. But what about the design and construction process Dr. Pfirmman cites three aspects of the construction process that he is most proud of:

The facility was completed within 19 months.
The plant was ready for operation without any significant failures.
With a budget of less than €25 million, the facility represents a highly efficient use of capital expenditure costs for a grass roots manufacturing building with state-of-the-art capabilities.

Bilcare GCS Opens New Global U.S. Headquarters

Bilcare Global Clinical Supplies, a provider of clinical trial services, recently opened its new global U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. The headquarters, which will be led by CEO Vito Mangiardi, operates as the company’s corporate hub to drive growth in Bilcare’s American, European, and Asian regions.

The opening of Bilcare GCS’ global headquarters marks the latest development in the company’s significant growth. During its 2007-2008 fiscal year, Bilcare GCS nearly doubled its global workforce, including significant additions to its executive team; completed a US$2.3 million capital investment program in the U.S.; expanded its facility in Rajgurunagar, near Pune, India; plans US$21 million towards a new clinical supplies facility in South Wales; and made significant global investments in technology, project management, and quality standards to help drive customer satisfaction and success. ther investments include new integrated business processes that span the entire clinical supply chain and cutting-edge technology solutions including interactive voice response/interactive web response (IVR/IWR) services.

Nectar Lifesciences Invests in New Pharma Facility

Nectar Lifesciences is to invest around RS 6bn ($141m) in a new bulk drug and pharmaceutical intermediate manufacturing facility in India's northern Punjab state.

The facility, which will be managed by the company's new Nectar Organics subsidiary, will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and drug products for both domestic and international drugmakers. Nectar said that the project, which is still subject to approval by the state government, will be funded through a mixture of debt and equity.

The 300 acre site, which will house Nectar's eleventh manufacturing facility and its seventh in Punjab, is expected to generate revenue of around Rs 10bn when it becomes fully operational in 2012.

At present, Nectar generates around 65 per cent of its annual revenue from exports, primarily though clients in the US and Europe. Goyal added that the new facility will allow it to continue developing its presence in these lucrative foreign markets.

Large Research Group Starts in London

University College London and four British hospitals are joining forces to create a research group that they are saying will be the country’s largest.

The collaborators are Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The alliance, to be called UCL Partners, will be based in London and will become operational in September. It will focus initially on 10 areas of research: the nervous system, children’s health, heart disease, transplantation, immunology, ophthalmology, deafness and hearing impairment, dental and oral disease, cancer and women’s health.

UCL Partners will support over 3,500 scientists, senior researchers, and consultants. They report that the annual turnover of around two billion.

University of Nevada in Las Vegas Expands Biotechnology

While UNLV has had a science program for five decades, only in the last couple of years has it pushed to bolster its graduate research in biotech and boosted its ties with the Nevada Cancer Institute. "The long-term goal is to create a place for companies to work collaboratively with faculty and students," said UNLV President David Ashley. "Ruvo and the cancer institute give us focus."

He also has a template to follow in the buildup of the research capability in renewable energy that now has more than 100 faculty and students.

As part of the push, UNLV created an office of technology transfer in January, not only to generate commercial royalties from discoveries in school labs but also to define projects to pursue. Technology transfer director Dr. Robert Sweitzer cited an example of seeking outside advice on designing radioisotopes that would detect or destroy particular tumors, then seeking grants to fund it based on a demonstrated market demand.

In the southwest corner of Las Vegas, the university has also started negotiating development agreements for the 114-acre Harry Reid UNLV Research and Technology Park. Executive director Bud Pittinger declined to detail the two proposals he currently has on the table, except that one has come from a developer that would build for several tenants, including a biotech company that would not come up with original molecules at the site but seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to use ones discovered elsewhere.

In tandem with its patient treatment programs, the Nevada Cancer Institute has been building a new drug development division. Under Dr. Giuseppe Pizzorno, who was recruited here from Yale University, the institute is pursuing a two-pronged approach of conducting phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of new drugs developed by others, as well as seeking new molecules in its own labs.

The Lou Ruvo Brain Institute, which expects to open its architecturally distinctive downtown center later this year, will not only treat patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, but seek cures for them as well.

Bridge Laboratories to Build Second Preclinical Facility in China

Bridge Laboratories has reached an agreement to build its second preclinical facility in China. This purpose-built, 150,000-sq.-ft. facility will be adjacent to the company's existing laboratory in the Zhongguancun Life Science Park located in Beijing. Construction will begin in 4Q08 and is expected to be complete by 4Q09.

The facility is designed to meet FDA and worldwide regulatory standards, and will provide GLP toxicology, immunology, vaccine, and bioanalytical services, according to the company. This new facility will quadruple Bridge’s available laboratory space in Beijing.

Pliant Plant will Add Production Lines and Approximately 60 Employees

Pliant Corporation, a producer of value-added film and flexible packaging products for personal care, medical, food, industrial and agricultural markets, will invest $1.9 million to expand its Danville, KY manufacturing facility, creating approximately 60 new jobs in the community.

Currently the 630,000 square-foot Danville complex manufactures polyethylene plastic film packaging for commercial and medical use and employs 291 people. The expansion will consolidate production lines from four other facilities outside of Kentucky into the Danville operations. The project will include upgrading and installation of plastic extrusion lines for packaging medical products, such as IV over wrap and syringe pouches.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) preliminarily approved of the expansion and tax benefits.

Helsinn’s Dublin Plant Approved by FDA

Helsinn’s pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Dublin, Ireland, gained approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) following a five day inspection. The visit was a pre-approval inspection for Helsinn's supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for the softgel form of palonosetron that is currently being reviewed by the FDA. In addition the inspectors confirmed the plant was compliant with good manufacturing practice (GMP), allowing for the sale of products in the US market.

The facility was extended by 27,000 sq ft in 2007 to increase production capacity, accommodate additional temperature-controlled warehouse space, employee facilities and plant services. In total Helsinn has invested over $15m in facilities and equipment for the production of palonosetron.

Biorepository Built at David Murdock Campus

Site work has begun on a biorepository being built at David Murdock’s 350-acre, $1.5 billion North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, NC, which will be developed by Laboratory Corporation of America and operated in partnership with Duke University’s Translational Medicine Institute as one of three new buildings set to start construction by the end of the year.

The cost of the biorepository building has not been finalized, nor has the cost of the equipment it will contain.

The 45,000-square-foot biorepository will include approximately 40,000 square feet of storage space, large enough to hold more than 10 million specimens to be brought in by pharmaceutical companies.

The building will also include some 5,000 square feet of other uses, ranging from labs for DNA and RNA extraction toward the preservation of nucleic acids, as well as computer rooms, offices, and space for freezers and other equipment.

The biorepository will also serve as a key component to the Murdock-launched Measurement to Understand Reclassification of Disease of Cabarrus/Kannapolis Study — also known as MURDOCK — by controlling all of the specimens examined.

Launched last September with a $35 million gift from the namesake developer, the MURDOCK study is designed to develop new, and more effective, ways to fight cancer, liver disease, aging/arthritis, brain disorders, and heart disease. Researchers will focus on the onset and progression of the diseases by studying several years’ worth of health data from patients. They will also try to identify causes of the disorders in hopes of developing targeted treatment options.

The research campus is the brainchild of Murdock, the billionaire food and real estate magnate who announced plans in 2005 to redevelop into a life-sci park the former Cannon Mills (and later Pillowtex) Plant 1 in downtown Kannapolis, the onetime “City of Looms” located some 20 miles north of Charlotte.

In 2006 broke ground on the first phase of his North Carolina Research Campus, where an eventual 1 million square feet of laboratory and office space is planned.

Kannapolis’ City Council last year approved borrowing $168 million in tax increment finance bonds for the research campus, allowing the city to fund the construction of capital improvements using debt repaid from the incremental new taxes to be generated by the project.

The TIF financing angered some residents and groups who viewed it as an unwarranted tax break, while city officials deemed it an investment whose benefit to the city would include the 30,000 people, including 5,000 researchers, that the campus is projected to employ at full buildout.

The biorepository will employ 36 technicians, all new hires. LabCorp will occupy its new building, which is set for completion in early 2009, under “a long, long term lease.

The biorepository will further a long-standing collaboration between LabCorp and Duke’s Translational Medicine Institute, which is housed at the research campus. Earlier this year, LabCorp licensed from Duke a blood-based assay for early detection of lung cancer. In 2006, LabCorp partnered with Duke to create the "Duke-LabCorp Scholars in Genomic Medicine" program to support studies into genomic-based clinical testing.

LabCorp also sees the biorepository as enabling collaborations with the undisclosed pharmaceutical companies that will use the facility.

The 311,000-square-foot David H. Murdock Core Laboratory Building — to be run by a public charity created and funded by the developer — will include equipment and facilities for research in bioinformatics, metabolomics, molecular genomics, and proteomics. It will also comprise a contract manufacturing biogenic facility, a 28,000-square-foot basement vivarium, and 80,000 square feet of specialized labs, including those for DNA sequencing, histochemistry, microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers.

Construction on the core lab is nearly complete.

Also close to completion is the Center for Agricultural Genetics, a two-building mini-campus that will house:

• The Fruit and Vegetable Science Institute, a branch of North Carolina State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences charged with creating new genetically superior variations on its namesake foods;

• The Nutrition Research Institute, a branch of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health that studies how diet affects brain development and may prevent cancer, and how diet and activity may prevent obesity; and

• The Dole Research Institute, Dole Food’s think tank charged in part with promoting healthier eating, and generating research and marketing materials for the company’s fruits and vegetables.

An agricultural research station is also being built as part of the center that will oversee more than 45,000 square feet of greenhouses and additional land set aside for agricultural experiments.

The new biorepository will join two other facilities that will begin construction over the remainder of 2008 at the research campus. The developer will start work on a Medical Office Building to be anchored by two healthcare providers, NorthEast Medical and Cabarrus Family Medicine. LabCorp will also have a presence in the medical office building, which it will use as a venue for clinical lab testing.

Also set to start construction this fall is a 40,000-square-foot Biotechnology Training Center of the BioNetwork Program, which links the state’s community colleges offering biotech instruction.

Those buildings will start construction once the research campus completes the core lab building and the Center for Agricultural Genetics.

Combined, the three nearly completed buildings contain more than 600,000 square feet of lab space and have helped draw to the research campus more than 20 academic and commercial life-sci users. They include Duke, NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill, NC A&T State University’s Center for Post Harvest Technologies, North Carolina Central University’s Metabolism Center, UNC-Charlotte’s Center for Bioinformatics, and UNC Greensboro’s Bioactive Institute.

Last month, the research campus announced that Sensory Spectrum had agreed to open laboratories and offices there. Founded in 1986, Sensory Spectrum is a management consulting firm developing consumer research using sensory methodology, for the food, beverage, ingredient, personal and oral health care, and nutrition industries.

Sensory Spectrum will occupy all of an 11,000-square-foot building that is being retrofitted for the company within the village portion of the research campus. Clyde Higgs, vice president of business development for the research campus, told BRN the deal was in the works “for close to 12 months,” but would not say if the company will lease or own that building.

In a July 16 statement announcing the expansion, Sensory Spectrum said it will base between 20 and 35 sensory scientists, psychologists, technicians and administrative staffers in Kannapolis. The firm also cited its existing relationship with the UNC Nutrition Research Institute, a tenant at the research campus. The company sought new space with the goal of better serving its clients in the Southeast, Higgs said.

Orlando Grows with Two Anchor Research Institutions Set to Open New Facilities

The University of Central Florida is constructing its $99 million, 198,000-square-foot UCF Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, set to open in May 2009 within the Orlando master-planned mixed-use community of Lake Nona. Three months later, also at Lake Nona, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research will open an $80 million, 168,000-square-foot research campus.

Those two facilities will be joined in March 2010 by UCF’s second building on the Lake Nona campus, a $68 million classroom building and medical library for the new College of Medicine, set to welcome its inaugural class in the fall of 2009.

UCF has signed the MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Cancer Research Institute to 30,000 square feet on the fifth floor of the Burnett biomedical sciences building. The five-year lease, announced in December, allows MD Anderson to move the institute within Orlando to a site three times the size of its current space. The new space is also temporary: CRI will pay the university $2.5 million to occupy the building for up to five years as MD Anderson makes plans to build its own research center within UCF’s Lake Nona site.

Another potential site for life-sciences companies in metro Orlando is the 100,000-square-foot wet-lab incubator that Tavistock announced in February for Lake Nona. Tavistock said in its announcement it would start work on the building in 2009 and complete it the following year. The lab project remains under development. They anticipate announcing more specifics about the wet-lab building later this year.

The incubator, like Burnham and UCF, would be built within Lake Nona’s sci-tech park, or medical city. The medical city will also be home to three other projects that will combine biomedical research with healthcare. These include:

• A new $560 million Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center set to rise on 65 acres. The center will include an outpatient clinic, a 134-bed hospital, a 118-bed nursing home, and a 60-bed domiciliary. The US Department of Veterans Affairs plans to award a construction contract next year, and complete the facility by 2012;

• A $400 million pediatric health-care facility set to be anchored by the 95-bed Nemours Orlando Children’s Hospital and Research Campus, which plans to build on a 60-acre site it acquired in June. Nemours has hired Skanska USA Building to manage the construction of the 600,000-square-foot project, set for a groundbreaking in 2009 and completion in 2012; and

• Florida Hospital, which is expected to develop a new hospital on 100 acres it confirmed it acquired in June when it won a zoning change from the Orange County Commission. The hospital has never publicly discussed its plans.

The biomedical and research facility projects are expected to accelerate growth in metro Orlando’s life-sciences sector, which has risen over the past five years from virtually nothing to more than 9,000 jobs in some 150 companies that generate a total $2.6 billion in economic activity, according to the EDC.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Completes $11.4 Million BioCenter, in First Phase of Expansion

Thermo Fisher Scientific executives last week celebrated the completion of an $11.4 million expansion in Logan, Utah, that has added 75 jobs to the laboratory equipment and supply giant’s local workforce.

The opening of Thermo Fisher’s new 37,000-square-foot BioCenter will be used to manufacture single-use bioprocess containers and related products used by pharmaceutical and biotech companies. In addition to an administration area, the structure includes a sera and liquid-media processing facility, powdered-media facility, warehouse and existing bioprocess containers facility. The building will not operate at full capacity for at least three or four months. Thermo Fisher now employs 400 people in Logan, and 30,000 globally.

This marks the end of the company's first of three expansion phases totaling 94,000 square feet. The company broke ground for its expansion last October, in an event attended by Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Fisher Scientific expanded into Utah in 2003 when it acquired HyClone, then renamed the facility three years later, after merging HyClone with Thermo Electron Corp.

Quest Diagnostics Relocating Laboratory

Quest Diagnostics has agreed to lease 1,310 square feet at the new $6 million Jewish Hospital North Medical Center, a medical-professional office building nearing completion at 9313 Mason-Montgomery Road in the Cincinnati suburb of Deerfield Township, Ohio.

Quest will move from its current location, when the 36,000-square-foot building is completed, according to Paul Hemmer. Quest will join at least one other tenant, the physicians’ group Alliance Primary Care, which will occupy 19,000 square feet on the second floor.

Ground for the center was broken last October. Based in Fort Mitchell, Ohio, Paul Hemmer has completed 15 medical office projects totaling more than 500,000 square feet in the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana “tri-state” region.

OpGen Relocates Headquarters from Madison to Gaithersburg

OpGen, a Madison, WI, biotechnology business specializing in genome mapping, is moving its headquarters to Maryland’s Montgomery County.

OpGen plans to boost its local workforce over the coming year to 70 workers, from the 10 new hires that will be in place when the company settles into a 15,000-square-foot combination HQ-production lab-manufacturing space. OpGen will continue to maintain a lab and 30 employees in a Madison incubator, but will steer future growth in Maryland.

OpGen was founded in 2001 after licensing its optical mapping technology from New York University and the University of Wisconsin

Ventana Medical Systems Expands its Tucson Campus to Nearly 60 Acres

Ventana Medical Systems has expanded its Tucson campus to nearly 60 acres after purchasing 17.1 acres from Vistoso Partners LLC, the owners of the Rancho Vistoso retirement community, for $8.9 million, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Ventana, a maker of medical diagnostic instrument and reagent systems, plans to use the new, 17-acre site for office space and parking.

Charles River Labs Opens New Frederick, MD Lab

Charles River Laboratories International has opened a 52,000-square-foot research laboratory in Frederick, Md., with the goals of better serving a key customer, the National Cancer Institute, and other customers in the Washington, DC, region.

Half of the new lab building will be set aside for supporting NCI research, with Charles River's Consulting and Staffing Services (CSS) group staffing and operating the facility. The other half will be occupied by Charles River's Research Models and Services business, which will use its new space to help grow its customer base in the Baltimore/Washington market.

The new facility employs approximately 120 employees, 80 of whom are focused on providing genetically defined, pathogen-free mice to support NCI/National Institutes of Health-funded research targeting the causes and treatments of infectious and metabolic diseases, cancer and other nationally recognized health issues.

Charles River has also assumed responsibility for managing the NCI/NIH Tumor and Natural Products Repository, which stores tumor samples for use by cancer researchers.

Charles River announced plans for the new lab after winning a 10-year, $111.6 million contract from NCI in 2006.

MUSC, SCRA Betting Charleston Incubator Can Keep University Biotech Startups Local

A biotechnology incubator planned for downtown Charleston, SC, will provide much-needed space for a “full pipeline” of startup companies emanating from research laboratories, hospitals, and partners of the Medical University of South Carolina.

With the goal of developing the state’s “knowledge economy,” the Charleston Innovation Center is one of a trio of incubators and research centers being developed near South Carolina research universities by the South Carolina Research Authority, a state-founded non-profit applied research and commercialization services company.

The other two research incubators – one at Clemson University focusing on advanced materials and one at the University of South Carolina focusing on alternative energy and nanotechnology – are also in the works, with the Clemson incubator farthest along.

SCRA is obligated to fund construction of the three centers – it will pump some $5 million into the Charleston incubator – under a South Carolina law called the Innovation Centers Act passed in 2005.

It is unclear exactly when the incubator will open, but SCRA officials said that the organization is eyeing the fall of 2009

The school just broke ground on the drug-discovery center earlier this year, and hopes to begin construction on the bioengineering center, which will be in collaboration with Clemson University, in 2009. The expanded research park is in early planning stages.

New Jersey: Proposed Genentech Acquisition Unlikely to Affect $1.4 Million State Grant Awarded Roche in ‘07

Roche plans to acquire for $43.7 billion the shares in Genentech it does not already own, then locate the combined company’s headquarters in Genentech’s home city of South San Francisco, Calif., will not preclude the company’s Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceutical unit from receiving economic subsidies awarded last year if it adds jobs as planned.

Roche last year won more than $1.4 million from the state of New Jersey under its Business Retention and Relocation Assistance Act Grant program, in return for pledging to retain 948 jobs at the company’s Nutley, NJ, and Clifton, NJ, facilities.

In announcing its proposed acquisition of Genentech of California, Roche also announced that it planned to expand its R&D operations in New Jersey. Given this information, we do not expect that Roche's potential future moves will have a negative impact on its BRRAG agreement with New Jersey.

GlaxoSmithKline Confirms Plans to Lay Off 90 Workers in Zebulon, NC

GlaxoSmithKline is laying off about 90 workers, accounting for 10 percent of the staff at its drug manufacturing plant in Zebulon, NC, a company official confirmed.

The layoffs will bring the number of people at GSK's plant in Zebulon to between 850 and 900, down from 1,350 just a year ago. The action was the second time GSK cut jobs this year.

Back in February, GSK told 70 people that their jobs were being eliminated.

GSK has also trimmed staffing at its Research Triangle Park campus — to an estimated 4,500 employees, from the 5,000 based there a year earlier.

Pennsylvania Awards $34 Million for Tech-Based Economic Development Efforts

Pennsylvania will spend $34 million on a variety of economic development projects focused on the life sciences and other technologies, following approval of the funding by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority.

Among life sciences-related projects funded:

• Ben Franklin Technology Partners received annual funding of $27.6 million, to be allocated among its four regional centers toward creating and expanding companies deemed to have potential for high growth through seed funding and technical assistance.

• The Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program, a federal-state-university partnership to help Pennsylvania companies improve competitiveness, received $1.5 million to provide assistance for emerging energy technologies. PennTAP will use this grant to provide one-on-one consultation to help small businesses evaluate and implement appropriate alternative energy solutions, create new technology products and components, and develop new markets for Pennsylvania's alternative energy technologies.

• Philadelphia University, Drexel University, and the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania received $1.25 million to create the Pennsylvania Advanced Textiles Reach and Innovation Center. The center, also called PATRIC, will provide a location and expertise to test, develop and create materials in a range of biological and technology applications.

• BioStrategy Partners of Elkins Park, Pa., was allocated $125,000 to overhaul its Life Sciences Leadership Forum; offer eight programs through the Practical Knowledge Series; provide commercialization services to life sciences companies and place interns at companies within state Keystone Innovation Zones. BioSP will also continue to nurture early stage companies.

• The Pennsylvania Angel Network received $35,000 for support services. PAN develops relationships intended to persuade high net worth individuals to invest in the growth of emerging Pennsylvania companies.

Almac Group Breaks Ground on $100 Million North American HQ in Harleysville

Almac Group, a life sciences research-and-development service company headquartered in Northern Ireland, broke ground last week on a new $100 million, 240,000-square-foot North American headquarters 40-acre campus in the Philadelphia suburb of Harleysville, PA, within Lower Salford Township. The facility is part of a consolidation project set to grow to 1 million square feet.

The project, set to be completed in 2010, will allow Almac to add 265 staffers to its 495 current employees. They will relocate to the new HQ from 1040 Stony Hill Road in Yardley, Pa., where Almac group now maintains its clinical technologies divisions; and 2661 Audubon Road in Audubon, where the company has its sciences and part of its clinical services divisions.

The new headquarters will initially house clinical technologies and another division, clinical services, though the company said it plans to shift other divisions to the campus over time.

Scottish Medical Research Center Opening

The Centre for Health Science in Inverness, Scotland, UK, is on track to complete its third and final phase by year’s end.

The £23 million ($45.9 million) project — to open near Raigmore Hospital — is designed to bring together researchers, healthcare providers, and organizations specializing in education, training, and business development within the first facility of its kind in the UK.

The third phase will include laboratories, a clinical research facility, and space for startup businesses spinning out of academic institutions. The development phase is projected to create 370 jobs.

The project will receive partial funding from the European Regional Development Fund, with the remainder coming from Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Phase one saw the development of academic facilities, including a large onsite library; while phase two consisted of several simulation suites together with a full-size “simulation” ward.

Developer Breaks Ground on R&D Complex in Bristol Township, PA with $6 Million from State

Ground was broken July 23 on a 230,000-square-foot research-and-development complex projected to bring between 300 and 500 jobs to Pennsylvania’s Bristol Township.

The Bridge Business Center will consist of two renovated lab-office buildings totaling more than 170,000 square feet, as well as a new 60,000-square-foot building, to be subdivided condominium-style for use by multiple industrial businesses.

Within the renovated space will be 50,000 square feet of lab space to be leased at below-market rents of $10 to $25 per square foot. The state has awarded $6 million from its Building PA program toward the lab project to developer Keystone Redevelopment Group of Doylestown, Pa.

The developer said it will use renewable energy to power the Bridge Business Center. That could make the project eligible for funding through a $650 million alternative energy measure recently signed into law by Gov. Edward Rendell.

Shorenstein Properties, SKS Close $84 Million Purchase of Oyster Point Campus, Marina

A joint venture of Shorenstein Properties and SKS Investments has closed on its approximately $85 million purchase from Shelton Corp. of Honolulu of the 34-acre Oyster Point Business Park, and nearby Oyster Cove Marina in South San Francisco.

The business park consists of six-building with 404,125-square-foot life sciences campus. The campus is 88 percent leased, with AMB Property Corp. of San Francisco handling property management.

IATRICa becomes Fifth Tenant at East Baltimore’s Science + Technology Park

IATRICa, the developer of a new class of biological molecules designed to fight cancer and infectious diseases, has signed a lease for 1,333 square feet at 855 North Wolfe St., also called the John G. Rangos Sr. Building, and the first of five planned life sciences/office buildings at Baltimore’s Science + Technology Park at Johns Hopkins.

IATRICa is the fifth tenant to formally commit to space at the campus, now 46 percent leased.

Tenants at the 278,000-square-foot office/research building include the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, which leases 99,000 square feet; Cangen Biotechnologies with 12,000 square feet; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute with 5,600 square feet; and BioMarker Strategies with 1,200 square feet. Amenities include access to the use of research equipment on the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions campus.

The brokerage team of Colliers Pinkard/ROC Realty and Scheer Partners handled the transaction for IATRICa and the Forest City-New East Baltimore Partnership, a joint venture between Forest City Enterprises’ Science + Technology Group and the residential development consortium Presidential Partners.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Opening Clinical Packaging Facility in India

Thermo Fisher Scientific is “on track” to open a $17 million clinical packaging facility in Ahmedabad, India.

When completed the facility will be a 150,000 square foot facility and help meet the growing demand for biopharma logistics outsourcing services, in response to the increasing number of clinical trial patients in India, according to the company.

The new facility will expand the company’s presence in India to more than 20 facilities and offices, and roughly 625 employees across the country.

In India, Thermo Fisher Scientific runs a demonstration laboratory in Mumbai, and since last year has made two acquisitions — Qualigence, which accounts for about $25 million of annual revenues; and two divisions of Chemito, which generate about $10 million in annual revenues.

Medical Research Foundation Renews 11,020 Sq. Ft. Lease in Uptown Houston

The Clayton Foundation for Research has renewed its lease of 11,020 square feet of office space at One Riverway, within Houston’s Uptown submarket.

SuperArray Bioscience Relocates to Larger Facility

SABiosciences Corp. — which changed its name last week from SuperArray Bioscience Corp. — has moved within Frederick, Md., to new space more than double the size of its former location.

SABiosciences has relocated to the 43,000-square-foot facility, within the newly developed Westview South Office Research Center. The new offices are a few blocks from the company’s previous home base, within 18,000 square feet at 7320 Executive Way, which SABiosciences said it has outgrown.

The company said in a statement its changes reflected both its growth over the last few years, as well as its expansion beyond gene expression analysis, into additional technologies. SABiosciences said it now also offers gene function analysis solutions such as RNA interference, ELISA kits, cell-based reporter assays, as well as chromatin immunoprecipitation and other products for epigenomics research.

BioTrove Expands With West Coast Customer Support, Corporate Presence in Mind

BioTrove, a developer of technology platforms for genomic research and drug discovery, has opened an office in the Bay Area community of San Carlos, CA.

BioTrove said its new corporate offices and laboratory will enable the company to expand its customer and technical support to West Coast clients by facilitating research collaborations, as well as technology demonstrations of the company's OpenArray genomic analysis system and RapidFire high-throughput mass spectrometry system.

"We already have marketing collaborations underway with Applied Biosystems and Agilent [technologies], so being close to our partners' facilities in the Bay Area enables further support and development of these important relationships," said Bob Ellis, executive chairman, president of international sales, and a director of BioTrove, in a written statement.

BioTrove said it will continue to house its corporate headquarters in Woburn, Mass

Patriot Partners Plans Life-Sciences Campus 15 miles northwest of Boston

A Framingham, MA, developer is looking to build what would be New England’s largest life-sciences campus in a town that has long wrestled with how to develop what is currently the state’s largest undeveloped parcel.

Patriot Partners anticipates that life-sci companies currently based in Boston and Cambridge, Mass., will generate enough demand for new space over the next several years to make viable its campus plan for the Boston suburb of Burlington, near its border with Lexington.

In phases stretching about 10 years, Patriot envisions building up to 2 million square feet of research-and-development and biomanufacturing space on the southern portion of a Burlington-owned, 247-acre tract.

If the committee supports the project, Patriot will submit formal applications to the town Planning Board and other boards. The developer and town officials will also have to negotiate a price for the land. The 247 acres include not only the proposed life-sci campus, but an up-to-2,000-unit senior-citizen housing development to be built by Erickson Retirement Communities, plus stores and restaurants. The senior complex and stores would rise on the parcel’s northern end, near Bedford.

The developer has cited figures showing that since 2001, 27 biotechnology companies have moved to Waltham and Lexington, occupying some 1.69 million square feet of space. Of the 27 companies, 19 were from Cambridge.

Among examples of life-sci companies expanding outside Boston and Cambridge:

• Bristol-Myers Squibb, which is transforming 89 acres once occupied by the barracks of former US Army base Fort Devens into a $750 million, 400,000-square-foot biologics-manufacturing plant now under construction. BMS projects the new facility will employ 350 people when it is completed in 2010; in return, the company won $60 million in state and local incentives;

• EMD Serono, which has announced a $50 million expansion of its research site in Billerica. The expansion is expected to account for half the 200-person job growth that the US affiliate of Geneva-based Merck Serono expects to yield in Massachusetts through 2012. EMD Serono will build a 125,000-square-foot addition to its 85,000-square-foot Billerica campus

• Altus Pharmaceuticals, which plans to move and consolidate operations from 125,000 square feet in three Cambridge sites during the third quarter, after signing a 10-year lease last year for 168,736 square feet within two buildings at the Hobbs Brook Office Park in Waltham. The maker of protein therapeutics for patients with chronic gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases would occupy an 83,000-square-foot office building and an 85,000-square-foot lab building in the city. In 2006, Altus came close to a deal for expansion space at Patriot’s Lexington Technology Park; and

• ImmunoGen, a developer of anti-cancer drugs, which has already relocated its headquarters from Cambridge to Waltham, where it signed a lease for 88,930 square feet of space at 830 Winter St.

•

Earlier this year, a unit of British-based Shire announced it would proceed with a $394 million expansion in Lexington. Shire Human Genetic Therapies will more than double its Massachusetts workforce over the next eight years by adding 680 staffers to the 675 individuals it now employs in the state. Shire plans to fill more than a half-million square feet of lab and office space in the Patriot-owned Lexington Technology Park by renovating a 125,000-square-foot facility and building two additional structures on development pads: a 200,000-square-foot space and a 170,000-square-foot space.

Shire has become a key tenant for Lexington Technology Park, a 100-acre campus whose 293,000 square feet once housed the corporate headquarters of aerospace and missile-defense company Raytheon until it relocated in 2003 to a 150,000-quare-foot facility within the Waltham Woods office park in Waltham. Shire’s expansion has not created spillover demand that would drive development of the Burlington project, Rice said.

Other projects include three by another San Diego-based REIT, BioMed Realty Trust, including the 705,000-square-foot Center for Life Science in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area; a 420,000-square-foot space in East Cambridge; and a 277,761-square-foot space in Cambridge.

Lotus Pharmaceuticals' Plans for $23.4 Million Manufacturing Facility in Inner Mongolia

The 400,000 square meter (4,304,000 sq. ft.) site, which is in Cha You's Cha Ha ER industrial garden district, was purchased by Lotus' subsidiary Liang Fang Pharmaceutical for RNM 39m under an agreement with the local economy commission.

Lotus will spend around RNM 160m on the construction at the site and plans to fit it out with drug production equipment.

Under the terms of Lotus' deal with the Cha You authorities, construction must begin by September this year with the plant scheduled to be fully operational by December 2010. The company is expected to seek good manufacturing practice accreditation from the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) and other drug regulators before beginning manufacturing operations.

The first drugs to be manufactured at the plant will include Lotus' range of medical solutions for the hospital market, including: 0.9 per cent physiological saline injection; hydroxyethyl starch for injection; Qiang Yi Ji starch, a medical corn starch known as O-2-hydeoxyethyl starch; and the anti-thrombotic agent dextran.

The company also plans to manufacture a new range of prescription pharmaceutical products at the facility and has announced its intention to expand its marketing and distribution networks accordingly.

Wyeth's Facility Gains OSHA's Highest Safety Recognition

Wyeth's manufacturing and research facility in Pearl River, New York has been awarded the highest recognition for workplace health and safety from the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

The facility is the 2,000th site in the US to be accepted into the Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) and the eighth to be awarded a 'star'.

Packaging Plant Blaze Disrupts Production

A fire at MY Healthcare's pharmaceutical packaging plant in Surrey, England has caused "major disruption" to production at the site.

Customers are being contacted individually as the company tries to ensure that the blaze causes minimal disruption to its clients.

To achieve this, the company is investigating the possibility of shifting production to other plants within the MY Healthcare network, which is part of packaging group Nampak.

Nobody was injured by the fire that took 230 firefighters and 19 engines to put out.

Pennsylvania Top in Building Biotech

Pennsylvania ranked No. 1 for overall strength in building its biotechnology business in 2007, according to a Business Facilities magazine study. The state invested $150 million in bioscience research funding, the magazine said, which helped it leapfrog at least 10 spots. A separate Green Cities study by the same magazine put Pittsburgh in a three-way tie for third with 26 LEED-certified projects, behind Chicago and Seattle with 40 and Portland, Ore., with 37.

Bertrand Chaffee Hospital Completes Cleanroom Construction

The pharmacy department at Bertrand Chaffee hospital has recently retooled in compliance with new federal regulations on the addition of a special cleanroom to manufacture intravenous (IV) solutions.

The pharmacy has transformed the previous area where they made intravenous solutions into a specialized clean room that satisfies the new federal guidelines. According to pharmacy director, Dr. Michael Barnett, PharmD, all pharmacies compounding intravenous solutions are required to comply with the new regulations.

The federal guidelines known as USP <797> are some of the most difficult, stringent and costly changes pharmacies have had to implement in many years.

The hospital was able to transform the previous area into the now cleanroom in just four months and at a cost of less than $1,000. Most hospitals have had to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a self-contained ISO barrier box which is difficult to use, or even more funds to construct new cleanrooms with special air handlers to meet federal guidelines.

With the construction of the newly renovated clean room at BCH, it ensures the ability of the hospital to continue to make intravenous products such as antibiotics, pain medications and total parenteral nutrition (solutions which can feed someone through the veins when they cannot eat because of surgery or other reasons). It also enables the pharmacy to extend the shelf-life of the sterile products it makes to the maximum allowed by the federal guidelines.

McIlvaine Company,

Northfield, IL 60093-2743

Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061;

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