DSM Biologics and AIBN partner to open biologics facility in Queensland

Contract manufacturing of biologics is becoming a hot industry, and the Queensland government, the University of Queensland and Netherlands-based contract manufacturing organisation DSM Biologics are in the final throes of getting Australia’s largest biologics scale-up facility off the ground in Brisbane.

DSM Biologics and the University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) signed a memorandum of understanding this week, securing the arrangement between the two.

Under the arrangement, the Queensland government entity Biopharmaceuticals Australia will own the facility, which will be run by DSM Biologics, with the AIBN collaborating on early stage biologics development.

The $65 million facility is currently under construction next to the Translational Research Institute (TRI) is Brisbane.

The collaboration was announced at BIO 2010 in Chicago, with the Queensland and federal governments contributing $7 million and $10 million respectively in seed funding to lure the international CMO to the antipodes to run the facility.

According to AIBN Director Professor Peter Gray, the AIBN and DSM Biologics have a great deal of complimentarily, with the former an expert in a number of biologics technologies, particularly in developing mammalian cell lines.

Under the arrangement, the new facility will give preferential access to Australian firms, including the AIBN, for manufacturing of biologics.

“The collaboration with DSM will ensure that Australian bioresearchers will be able to rapidly progress from lab work to late-stage research in a clinical setting using high-purity material developed in Brisbane,” said Gray.