The biopharma company is consolidating its research and administration capabilities in Cambridge, UK and San Diego, US.
Beginning in January 2018, Abzena will be operating from a consolidated space within the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, UK. The new 30,000-sq. ft. facility was developed by Imperial College ThinkSpace under a long-lease granted to Imperial for land owned by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
The move was initially announced in February 2015. All of Abzena’s UK operations, including its corporate administrative offices and biology and chemistry research services groups, will be consolidated in the purpose-built Building 900, which is managed by Babraham Bioscience Technologies Ltd (BBT), the company that develops and manages the Babraham Research Campus.
In addition, Abzena has signed an agreement with BBT to run and develop the antibody discovery services formerly provided by BBT’s Technology Development Laboratory. Meanwhile, in San Diego, CA, Abzena will be consolidating its West Coast biomanufacturing operations into a single state-of-the-art, 50,000-sq.ft facility at Lusk Boulevard. The company’s process and analytical development groups will relocate from the existing Torrey Pines laboratories in the second quarter of 2018.
Once additional remodeling of the facility takes place, which will include biomanufacturing cleanrooms that accommodate 500 and 2000-liter bioreactors, Abzena’s manufacturing group will relocate to the new facility. The bioprocess reactor equipment, process analytic software and design support for the new biomanufacturing facility in San Diego are being provided by Sartorius Stedim Biotech SA. The entire facility is anticipated to be up and running early in 2019.
Commented Abzena CEO John Burt: “The new facilities in Cambridge and San Diego are an important strategic step in the delivery of our integrated services model and will greatly enhance Abzena’s operations. The combination of state-of-the-art facilities and leading technologies will enable the Group to support its international customers as they progress their drug development programs from research into clinical trials.”
At its Bristol, PA facility, the construction of a GMP conjugation suite remains on track, and the company expects it to be operational near the end of the first quarter of 2018.