Caliber opens ‘world’s largest plant production facility’
pharmafile | April 28, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Biopharmaceuticals, Caliber Biotherapeutics, G-Con LLC, biopharmaceutical manufacturingÂ
A new facility dedicated to manufacturing biopharmaceuticals in plant cell culture – claimed to be the largest of its type in the world – has been officially opened in Texas, USA, by recently-formed company Caliber Biotherapeutics.
The 145,000 sq.ft. facility has the capability of producing up to 100 million doses of infectious vaccines per month, as well as hundreds of thousands of doses of protein-based drugs such as monoclonal antibodies, according to the company.
Caliber was set up earlier this year as a marriage between Texas A&M University in Bryan and privately-held company G-Con LLC, which have been working together in the area of plant cell-based production techniques.
The company has been co-founded by Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives at Texas A&M, and G-Con’s president Barry Holtz. It will focus initially on the use of tobacco plants, rather than egg-based vaccine technology, to produce infectious diseases vaccines, and the on use of plant cells as an alternative to mammalian and microbial cells for making biologics drugs.
Caliber also plans to develop a proprietary product pipeline for cancer and infectious diseases based on cell- and microbial-based production systems.
“With plant-based systems, we have an unprecedented level of flexibility and scalability,” said Holtz, who serves as Caliber’s chief scientific officer.
“This enables simultaneous production of multiple proteins and rapid change-overs from one product to another in order to meet patients’ needs and respond to emerging infectious diseases and bioterror threats.”
Caliber sprang out of an earlier initiative entitled Project GreenVax, which was set up with the help of around $40 million in federal funding in early 2010, plus $21 million from its founder partners. G-Con was involved in the construction and management of the facility, including the installation of modular cleanroom ‘pods’, which house specialised purification and laboratory equipment.
“The Caliber platform is designed to be uniquely agile and responsive, enabling us to accelerate development of products with improved efficacy, reduced cost and enhanced safety,” said Giroir, the company’s chief medical officer.
Caliber said it will be announcing strategic alliances and its priorities for product development in the coming months.
Phil Taylor
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