Genentech opens $400m fill-and-finish plant
pharmafile | April 8, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Genentech
US biotech giant Genentech has officially opened its new 296,000 sq. ft. biologics manufacturing facility in Hillsboro, near Portland, Oregon.
The new fill-and-finish plant, constructed with an investment of around $400 million, adds capacity that will relieve pressure at the Roche subsidiary’s main production facility in South San Francisco.
South San Francisco will remain the main manufacturing unit for Genentech’s bulk drug substances, but Hillsboro will be used to fill and package a number of the company’s top products, including cancer therapies Avastin (bevacizumab), Rituxan (rituximab) and Herceptin (trastuzumab)
The plant is currently being validated and qualified to meet FDA standards, a set necessary for it to be able to accept bulk drug shipments from the South San Francisco plant.
Hillsboro is expected to be licensed the fill-and-finish of Genentech’s US sales of these products by the end of next year, while a license to fill and finish these products for markets outside the USA is expected by 2013.
Hillsboro currently employs around 250 staff with experience in biologics manufacturing, and Genentech expects this total to increase to 300 by 2015.
By 2013 the plant is expected to be only US commercial filling and packaging facility in the Roche biologics manufacturing network, said Genentech.
At a ceremony to open the plant, Genentech said it needed the new capacity to cope with increased production demands stemming from high growth for its cancer products, and also wanted to avoid the potential disruption to supply should an earthquake affect its San Francisco facility.
The development of the Hillsboro site was supported by about $5 million in worker training assistance from the local authorities, as well as $23 million over 15 years in tax exemptions.
The 75-acre site is also the location for Genentech’s west coast warehouse and distribution centre which started operations in July 2008.
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