Charles River Laboratories says it will expand its cell therapy facility in Memphis, Tennessee to enable clients to streamline and accelerate their programs.

Contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) Charles River will increase its existing 16 cleanrooms by adding nine processing suites at its Memphis plant. The company says that the facility expansion will support its cell therapy clients and help them to speed their programs to commercialization.

According to the firm, the suites will include advanced cleanroom facility technology and have been designed to meet GMP requirements. Additionally, the suites have dedicated air handling to avoid cross-contamination, as well as templated two-dimensional modular construction to aid the flow of materials and reduce risk to the product.

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“More cell therapy clinical programs are progressing to late stage and commercial,” a spokesperson for Charles River told us.

“As a result, Charles River is experiencing strong growth in the interest of our cell therapy CDMO services especially from clients with high volume, late stage, and commercial needs. All signs point towards this rapid growth continuing in the coming years. With several of our current client programs moving towards commercialization, it was an easy decision to expand our capacity with these commercial-ready suites.”

Furthermore, the CDMO claims that the suites will be able to accommodate flexible configurations, high volume manufacturing, and the option for dual product lines for late stage and commercial production.

“We anticipate that the expansion of Charles River’s Memphis facility will lead to additional hires. The number of additional hires is dependent on the volume of work from our clients and how their clinical and commercial manufacturing ramp up over time,” said the spokesperson.

Charles River says that its 2021 acquisitions of Cognate BioServices, Cobra Biologics, and Vigene Biosciences, has “significantly” increased its cell and gene therapy portfolio into cell therapy, viral vector and plasmid DNA production (pDNA).

Financial details of the expansion remain undisclosed due to company policy.