manufacturing news from FierceBiotech

A joint venture between Crucell and DSM Biologics - Percivia -- has produced a new, more efficient approach to manufacturing monoclonal antibodies and proteins. By relying on human cell lines rather Read more...

Pfizer has finally confirmed earlier reports about its plan to Read more...

PDL BioPharma has inked a deal to sell its U.S. antibody manufacturing plant to Denmark's Genmab for $240 million. The deal--which will enable Genmab to transition three Read more...

What's a drugmaker doing, investing in securities at least partly backed by subprime mortgages? Ask Bristol-Myers Squibb, which took a $275 million write-down on so-called "auction rate securities" Read more...

Much to Ireland's disappointment, Amgen said it would "postpone indefinitely" a planned €800 million manufacturing facility in County Cork. The biotech giant said that a review of its Read more...

Genzyme broke ground today on a $150 million expansion on its manufacturing facility on the Charles River in Boston. The expansion will add 90 new workers to the 400 already employed at the plant. Read more...

BioProperties has committed $15 million to CEL-SCI to build a manufacturing plant for its cancer drug Multikine. The therapy is approved for a Phase III trial for head and neck cancer. The facility will cost up to $14 million, which CEL-SCI will pay for through a long-term lease.

"We will be able to produce our drug Multikine in our own CGMP facility for Phase III trials as well as for sale once marketing approval is granted," says Geert Kersten, CEO of CEL-SCI. "An additional …

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The heat is on the FDA to find a way to approve a generic insulin, the oldest existing biologic on the market. And some observers say that the push is likely to spur a broader effort for a generic regulatory pathway for all biologics. Insulin has been used in form or another since the 1920s, but there has never been a generic form approved. Some $3.3 billion dollars a year is spent on insulin.

- read the …

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Press Release: Amgen Announces $5 Billion Stock Repurchase Plan

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Switzerland's Lonza has struck a deal to buy a manufacturing plant in Spain from Genentech for $150 million. Genentech, meanwhile, gained an option to buy a huge new manufacturing plant Lonza is building in Singapore for $290 million plus $70 million in milestones. Lonza expects the FDA to license the new plant in …

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