Located on a site adjacent to Yposkesi’s existing resources on the Genopole Campus in Corbeil-Essonnes, the project will double the CDMO’s production area to 10,000 m2 with the new building housing two additional production lines with several 1,000-liter bioreactors, as well as chromatography and purification skids.

A centralized warehouse, capacity for media, solutions and mountings preparations will also be included, along with drug substance production suites and storage, along with quality control lab resources.  Pharmaplan is the prime contractor while CBI, a subsidiary of Vinci Construction France, is building the facility.

Yposkesi said the €58 million investment will create one of the largest biologics facilities in Europe and help it address the shortage in manufacturing capacity for drug developers seeking to advance clinical trials and commercialize new therapeutics.

“SKY is the culmination of our industrial strategy, guaranteeing clients a range of quality services from early clinical drug development through all phases to the manufacture of large-scale commercial batches of ATMPs (Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products),” said Alain Lamproye, Yposkesi’s executive chairman. “This project will also showcase our outstanding technological know-how in bioproduction for gene therapy drugs.”

In March this year, US-headquartered CDMO SK Pharmteco acquired a major stake in Yposkesi. SK Pharmteco comprises four business units: SK biotek Korea, SK biotek Ireland, AMPAC Fine Chemicals and AMPAC Analytical Laboratories.

SK Pharmteco operates six manufacturing and development facilities in Dublin, Ireland; Rancho Cordova, California (also its headquarters site), LaPorte, Texas, and Petersburg, Virginia, in the US; and Sejong and Daejeon in South Korea. It also has a dedicated analytical services facility in El Dorado Hills, California, USA.

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist