Testing times: WuXi ATU investments ready to support CGT cascade

WuXi Advanced Therapies has highlighted its expanded cell and gene therapy testing capabilities in preparation for as many as 200 products reaching the market in the next seven years.

“Just 18 months ago there was a little over 1,100 compounds in development. Now there are over 2,000,” Michael Stump, executive director of Testing Operations at WuXi Advanced Therapies said at Biotech Week Boston.

“Even a 5-10% success rate, we’re looking at 200 modalities coming into the market in the next five to seven years.”

While the manufacturing side has been scaling up to support this, the testing side has been lagging, he told BioProcess Insider in an exclusive interview.

However, “WuXi [Advanced Therapies]’s invested very heavily” on its testing capabilities, highlighting an expansion at its Pennsylvania site, located in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard.

“The cell and gene therapy space, I think everyone is acutely aware of the need of patients and how to best support them as rapidly as possible. Because of that need […] we want to make sure we can get testing to support the manufacturing as quickly as possible,” he said.

“Most recently we opened our new facility, which is called R400. It increases our capacity by 136%, […] in order to support all the testing work cells for the rapid release of those products.”

The full interview is below: