MilliporeSigma bolsters ADC business with $76m US expansion

Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) MilliporeSigma, the life-sciences division of Merck, has invested €70 million ($76 million), adding 34,000 square-feet to its facility, which will house departments for process and analytical development (PAD), quality control, research and development, manufacturing, and logistics. The CDMO expects the expansion to create 170 jobs for skilled workers. 

The plant will have PAD laboratories, a buffer preparation facility, cold storage, and a GMP-controlled room temperature (CRT) warehouse. The facility’s PAD labs will enable early-stage and commercial bioconjugate production for solid cancers. 

“With this investment, we are not just enhancing our capabilities; we are investing in our clients’ success by accelerating innovation and development to ultimately deliver novel therapies to patients more quickly,” said Benjamin Hein, head of life science services at MilliporeSigma.  

“ADCs represent a transformative approach to oncology, enabling targeted therapies that minimize damage to healthy tissues. As the market for this novel modality grows and the medical community adopts them as first-line treatments, it may mean that fewer patients need invasive treatments like chemotherapy and radiation that cause significant side effects.” 

The St. Louis facility is dedicated to downstream conjugation and has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a commercial conjugation supplier. 

Recently, the CDMO opened its €290 million ($313 million) facility in Rockville, Maryland, consolidating laboratories that were once spread across four buildings into an integrated hub. In September 2024, MilliporeSigma launched a single-use reactor to manufacture ADCs. The systems use disposable components that are sterile and pre-validated, which reduces the risk of cross-contamination between batches and increases efficiency by 70%.