Merck Boosts Commercial Capacity in France
Merck has opened a commercial facility for its new Millipore® CTDMO Services offering at the company’s site in Martillac, France
Merck has opened a commercial facility for its new Millipore® CTDMO services offering at the company’s site in Martillac, France. The 2,700-square-meter facility will provide global supply of commercial drug substances, including monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and other recombinant proteins, from an integrated site featuring state-of-the-art single-use equipment and onsite regulatory, quality and technical experts.
Merck KGaA
“Our clients are pioneering modern medicine and managing multiple partners, supply chain needs and complex priorities and are turning to Merck to help them navigate the complexity and provide flexibility and scale,” said Dirk Lange, Head of Life Science Services, Life Science business sector of Merck. “With this facility and our global Millipore® CTDMO Services network, we offer truly differentiated services, including templates for drug development, manufacturing and commercialization to accelerate molecules to market with one experienced partner.”
This expansion will support clients such as Y-mAbs Therapeutics, Inc., a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focusing on pediatric immunotherapies leveraging Merck’s CTDMO services. “With Merck’s support, we’ve brought our drug candidate for pediatric brain cancer to patients in roughly half the time than the approximate 12 years it typically takes to bring a biologic to market,” said Torben Lund-Hansen, CTO, Head of Technical Operations, Y-mAbs. “Merck’s end-to-end process development and GMP manufacturing services were key to achieving this milestone.”
The Martillac facility is designed to operate at the highest levels of efficiency and can rapidly pivot from 200 to 2000 litres of drug substance. It also features two 2000-litre bioreactors in one manufacturing suite to increase capacity and flexibility. Leveraging state-of-the-art technology and a proven quality system allow Merck clients to streamline and accelerate the commercialization process by eliminating the need for tech transfer and scale-up between clinical and commercial stages. This differentiated CTDMO services offering is purpose-built and seamlessly integrates product characterization and safety testing to accelerate the development and commercialization process.
With more than 30 years of drug development, material science and process technology expertise, Millipore® CTDMO Services offerings span pre-clinical to commercial phases, including testing, across multiple modalities including mAbs, highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients, antibody-drug conjugates, viral vector therapies, mRNA, and lipid nanoparticle formulation. This includes hardware and software, single-use consumables, and raw materials. The company’s network includes sites throughout Europe, the U.S., and Asia.
Merck’s Millipore® CTDMO Services are part of the recently formed Life Science Services business unit, which, along with the Process Solutions business, is one of Merck's “Big 3” growth drivers. The company aims to increase its Group sales to approximately € 25 billion by 2025. To achieve its growth targets, Merck plans to increase its total investments between 2021 and 2025 significantly compared with the period from 2016 to 2020.
Other news from the department business & finance
Get the life science industry in your inbox
From now on, don't miss a thing: Our newsletter for biotechnology, pharma and life sciences brings you up to date every Tuesday and Thursday. The latest industry news, product highlights and innovations - compact and easy to understand in your inbox. Researched by us so you don't have to.
Most read news
More news from our other portals
See the theme worlds for related content
Topic world Antibodies
Antibodies are specialized molecules of our immune system that can specifically recognize and neutralize pathogens or foreign substances. Antibody research in biotech and pharma has recognized this natural defense potential and is working intensively to make it therapeutically useful. From monoclonal antibodies used against cancer or autoimmune diseases to antibody-drug conjugates that specifically transport drugs to disease cells - the possibilities are enormous
Topic world Antibodies
Antibodies are specialized molecules of our immune system that can specifically recognize and neutralize pathogens or foreign substances. Antibody research in biotech and pharma has recognized this natural defense potential and is working intensively to make it therapeutically useful. From monoclonal antibodies used against cancer or autoimmune diseases to antibody-drug conjugates that specifically transport drugs to disease cells - the possibilities are enormous
