Cytiva amps up regional manufacturing strategy with India plant

Cytiva has opened a 33,000 square-foot manufacturing facility and experience center in Pune, India. 

The facility will boost bioprocess vendor Cytiva’s production of equipment including tangential flow, virus filtration, and inactivation systems. The established facility is located at Hinjewadi Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park in Pune, about 100km southwest of Mumbai. 

The facility includes an ‘Experience Center’ providing immersive training programs for upstream and downstream technologies along with digital and automation software. Moreover, the facility also showcases Cytiva’s in-house products including ÄKTA, Allegro, iCELLis and Sepax. 

c/o Cytiva

“The new Cytiva Experience Center will help address the problem of retaining talent by providing trainings and demonstrations on the latest bioprocessing technologies to strengthen the skills of India’s biotechnology talent,” a spokesperson for Cytiva told BioProcess Insider. 

Keeping sustainability as a key priority, the firm says the facility will use GreenPro-certified insulation, cement, plywood, and steel along with water efficient fixtures to reduce water demand by 46%.  

Additionally, 100% of the effluent water will be treated and reused for gardening, and 95% of the facility’s footprint will be air-conditioned, with a BEE5 star rating to improve energy efficiency. 

“The facility will also provide immersive upstream programs including operator training on SU [single-use] bioreactors, process development and scale-up technology using SU Bioreactors, and downstream training programs including operator training on chromatography purification systems, filtration systems, large scale column packing for efficient purification, UNICORN software training, downstream process development and scale-up,” said Cytiva. 

Cytiva In India 

The company has a strong presence in India with facilities in Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, and Kolkata, in addition to the new facility in Pune. The Bangalore unit, which includes a Fast Trak Center, offers training as well as validation and bioprocessing services, and a center for research and development across bioprocess, discovery, medical, and genomic medicine businesses. 

Sharing more on the firm’s future in India, Cytiva said, “Regional manufacturing has been and will continue to be Cytiva’s strategy in India. The new manufacturing facility and experience center in Pune will help facilitate India’s ambitions to be biomanufacturing hub.” 

According to Cytiva’s 2023 Global Biopharma Resilience Index, 65% of biopharma executives in India believe that the manufacturing of biologics in their country is likely to significantly increase over the next three years. This is 15% higher than the global average, and in line with India’s mission to become a hub for the development of novel vaccines, biologics and biosimilars. 

As part of India’s ambitious strategy to become a global biopharma hub by 2025, Cytiva plans to reciprocate on the growing needs of the industry in India. Earlier this year, the Indian government, through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) announced the National Biotechnology Development Strategy, sending a signal to industry players to respond to the needs of the industry. 

“With the current growth trajectory of the sector we are confident that India will be within the top five countries globally and be recognized as a global biomanufacturing hub by 2025, with the sector growing exponentially to achieve a growth of $150 billion,” the strategy states.