Increased Capacity Needed for Mammalian Cell Culture (BIO 2024)

Editor's note: this interview was originally published on PharmTech.com.

Mammalian cell culture is in strong demand, and demand for capacity is growing, according to Lars Petersen, CEO of FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, at BIO 2024. The company has made it a main strategic goal for this year to meet this growing demand. “We are starting up a facility right now in Denmark (1), which is maybe the highest priority,” Petersen says, who also emphasizes that the company has “multiple CAPEX [capital expenditures] projects that we need to finish up.”

“In general, we are we shifting the business after COVID, after some of the financial challenges, to [focus on] what demand is most important … and we see a lot of new interest coming in. Being ready for that [demand] … is the most significant goal of the year,” Petersen says.

As for the company’s expansion of its Holly Springs, N.C., mammalian cell culture facility (2), Petersen explains that this expansion “has really been driven by demand … Demand is high.”

The market for mammalian cell culture needs more capacity, according to Petersen. “There's so much volatility shift and demand from new products coming in, shifting the market from innovators to CDMOs [contract development and manufacturing organizations] [for] new modalities [in treating diseases] like Alzheimer's. The pressure is on [for] other modalities that all end up with higher demand,” he says.

In terms of the future of therapeutic modalities, Petersen sees antibody drug conjugates making a comeback after about a decade and, conversely, a bit of slowdown in messenger RNA. “All these modalities, they really are difficult to foresee,” he observes. However, he expects that monoclonal antibodies will remain a major therapeutic modality for potentially the next 10–15 years, at least.

Click the video above for the full interview. BIO 2024 is being held in San Diego, Calif., on June 3–6.

References

1. FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies. FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies Breaks Ground For Major Expansion of Its Large Scale Biologics Production Facility in Denmark. Press Release, March 3, 2021.
2. FUJIFILM. FUJIFILM to Invest Additional $1.2 Billion to Expand its Large-Scale Cell Culture CDMO Business in North Carolina. Press Release, April 11, 2024.