FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, Inc., a world leader in the development and manufacture of serum-free and chemically defined cell culture media for bioproduction and cell therapy manufacturing, today announced the establishment of an Innovation and Collaboration Center in Suzhou New District, China. Through this new center, experts will collaborate with customers to design upstream cell culture processes that meet their biomanufacturing needs.

In the past decade, the world has seen rapid growth in China’s biopharmaceutical, vaccine, cell and gene therapy markets. The speed of approval of biosimilar drugs and investment by the government to make more affordable drugs available to its people is accelerating that growth. Accordingly, the market for cell culture media in China has been expanding, and it is currently expected to grow at an annual rate of about 20%*. Researchers and drug manufacturers require high-performing, safe, and reliable bioprocesses to drive down the cost of therapeutics.

The Innovation and Collaboration Center will incorporate advanced cell culture automation and analysis into process and media development to enable highly accurate evaluation and identification of optimal upstream cell culture processes. Furthermore, it will provide the local resources and expertise for optimized cell culture media and associated workflows, to achieve the quantity and product quality attributes necessary to support commercial production of new drugs.

Yutaka Yamaguchi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, General Manager Fujifilm Life Sciences Business Division, commented: “Through our proven media development expertise FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific support some of the most important global biologics commercially available today, including COVID-19 vaccines and therapies. We will continue to expand services globally to provide easier access for customers to collaborate with our scientists and bioprocessing experts, and benefit from rapid development and delivery of high-quality cell culture products and solutions.” He added: “We are increasing the number of sales and technical support staff throughout China to meet the development needs and support the antibody pharmaceutical industry in the growing Chinese market.”

The new center in Suzhou will join the network of optimization services offered from FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific’s facilities in the USA and Japan. Construction has begun and is planned for completion by March, 2022.