AGC adds mammalian capabilities to Japanese network

Demand for mammalian biomanufacturing services has led AGC Bio to invest in its facility in Chiba, Japan.

Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) AGC Bio is adding a new facility at its site in Chiba containing single-use bioreactors at the 500 and 2,000 L scale. The plant, expected to be operational by the second half of next year, will produce monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), fusion proteins and other types of therapeutic proteins for its customers.

“The facility is being established for general demand and is not necessarily solely for the Japanese market,” AGC Bio spokesperson Bob Broeze told us. “We expect to receive interest from clients throughout Asia as well as from the EU and US.”

Image: iStock/Osamu Takeishi

This is the first mammalian single-use facility that AGC has set up in Japan, he continued, adding the firm has two microbial CDMO facilities in the country.

In Chiba, the firm has a microbial facility offering scales of up to 4,500 L, while in Yokohama the CDMO has a plant offering GMP microbial manufacturing at the 400 L, 300 L, and 30 L scale.

The cost of the new mammalian plant has not been disclosed.

The news comes weeks after AGC Bio announced plans to add six 2,000 L single-use bioreactors at its facility in Copenhagen, Denmark, previously run by CMC Biologics before the firm was acquired by Asahi Glass Company (AGC) in 2016.