New facility for Althea one step closer
closer to a significant increase in manufacturing capacity as it
announces the completion of the first phase of construction at its
new San Diego facility.
Construction on the new facility, funded in part by a recent $23m financing deal with Telegraph Hill Partners, began at the beginning of the year. The new 30,000 sq. ft plant will consist of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and aseptic fill and finish wings (currently under construction), along with the warehousing and materials management facilities that have now been completed. When complete, the API section will feature a fermentation train leading to 1,000 liter scale batch production and downstream processing facilities. Facilities for aseptic fill and finish activities will include automated vial and syringe filling, inspection and labelling equipment capable of batch sizes of over 100,000 units. The new facility is intended to strengthen Althea's ability to support its client's manufacturing needs right through from pre-clinical through commercial scale production. According to the company, contract discussions with potential clients keen to make use of the increased manufacturing capacity have already begun. Althea offers cGMP contract manufacturing facilities to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, and this latest addition to the company's manufacturing capacity has been designed to allow the firm to accommodate growing demand for larger batch sizes from current and future clients. As is stands, the company already occupies a custom-designed, validated facility that was completed in 2003. The manufacturing facilities include five fully independent cGMP production suites, with dedicated space for cGMP production of plasmid DNA, recombinant proteins and lyophilisation, as well as cGMP vial and syringe filling for preclinical and clinical products. The new building will be the third facility located on the company's San Diego campus, bringing the total area occupied by the firm on the site to 80,000sq. ft. In addition to its contract manufacturing activities, the firm also offers testing services to the biopharmaceutical industry, and gene expression analysis.
