Celltrion to Break Ground on Massive New Biopharmaceutical Plant

Celltrion Healthcare has unveiled plans to build a $453.3 million biopharmaceutical plant and research center near its base of operations in Incheon, Republic of Korea. The company said the buildout is supported by rapidly increasing biopharmaceutical demand across the globe.

The biosimilar developer aims to build a 60,000-liter biopharmaceutical plant for diverse types of production needs and also a research center employing 2000 professional biodevelopment personnel for high-level activities related to expanding the company’s pipeline of medicines, including biosimilars, according to a report in the Korea Biomedical Review. The plans were announced during a biopharmaceutical industry forum this week in Korea.

Celltrion aims to complete the research center and the factory by July 2022 and May 2023, respectively, with the factory starting operations by June 2024. The additional plant will give Celltrion a total production capacity of 250,000 liters annually, up from 190,000 at its 2 existing plants.

Eight 7500-liter incubators will shorten the time between manufacture of drug batches, the company said. A fourth plant also is in the planning stages, although further details were not provided, according to the press report.

In August, Samsung Biologics announced plans for $2 billion in spending on what it called the world's largest factory and biopharmaceutical production center, also in Incheon. The company aims to begin production at the site by the second half of 2022.