Morphotek Opens Manufacturing Plant

Morphotek, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eisai Co., Ltd., has opened a new pilot manufacturing plant in Exton, PA for the production of biologic-based therapeutics to support its early-stage clinical trials. The company invested $80 million in the 60,000-sq.-ft. cGMP facility to maximize efficiencies for its product development process.
 
The facility will begin production operations in late 2012 and GMP manufacturing in 2013. The company has hired 23 new employees and expects additional jobs to be created in the near future. 
 
“With the opening of our state-of-the-art pilot plant we now have the capability to produce our therapeutic antibodies much more efficiently and faster than we were capable of previously when we had to outsource their manufacture,” said Philip M. Sass, Ph.D., executive vice president and chief operating officer. “The facility is designed and equipped to produce multiple biologics simultaneously and will enable us to initiate more Phase I studies to test the safety and efficacy of our lead antibodies than we could previously.”