Dive Brief:
- Contract drugmaker Simtra BioPharma Solutions will invest $250 million to expand its sterile fill and finish manufacturing campus in Bloomington, Indiana, according to a company press release.
- A new 150,000-square-foot building will be constructed to accommodate additional production spaces and automated syringe fill lines and vial lines.
- Construction is scheduled to begin in June and the clinical line is expected to be ready for new projects by summer 2025. Good manufacturing practice readiness for the new building is anticipated in late 2026.
Dive Insight:
The expansion will create hundreds of jobs and is part of Simtra BioPharma Solutions’ long-term investments to meet growing demand for GLP-1 weight-loss products and cancer treatments like antibody drug conjugates.
"We are experiencing a broad increase in demand and need for injectable manufacturing in therapeutic classes such as GLP-1 drugs and product categories such Antibody-Drug-Conjugates as well as overall continued growth of the oncology pipeline," CEO Franco Negron said in the release.
As part of its growth plans, in 2021 the biomanufacturer invested more than $100 million in its Halle/Westfalen, Germany site, Simtra’s only other manufacturing facility. Construction of the additional manufacturing building and clinical lines are expected to be ready by the end of the year.
The CDMO has recently undergone major changes to its structure. In October 2023, global private equity firms Advent International and Warburg Pincus acquired Baxter’s biopharma business, Simtra, for about $4.3 billion. The move is helping the contract manufacturer to scale its growing sterile injectables and variety of therapeutic drugs.
In January, Simtra BioPharma Solutions also moved its headquarters to New Jersey, home to many biomanufacturing companies.
