Process development activities at the firm, currently carried out at its facility in Stony Brook, New York, will now be integrated into Dowpharma's site in San Diego, California. The transfer is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of this year.
The site will focus on process development and scale-up of client production processes for therapeutic proteins and peptides expressed in various systems.
It houses R&D laboratories with genomics and bioinformatics capabilities to support the optimisation of expression strains, process development labs with 26 computer-controlled microbial fermenters (up to 1,500 litres), and a pilot plant.
Other capabilities include primary recovery capabilities including disc stack centrifugation, continuous flow centrifugation and microfiltration, as well as purification with skids based on large-scale chromatography skids, ultrafiltration/diafiltration and expanded bed adsorption.
Researchers at the San Diego facility were behind the development and recent launch of Protein Factory, a new Pseudomonas fluorescens based expression system for the production of therapeutic proteins and peptides.
