CSL Behring Invests $450M In Manufacturing Facility Expansion

CSL Behring (CSL), a biopharmaceutical company which manufactures plasma protein therapeutics, has launched a multi-year expansion to its manufacturing facilities in Melbourne, Australia and Illinois. These expansions mark the first step in a global CSL expansion which eventually will include facilities in Bern, Switzerland and Marburg, Germany, as well.

CSL reports that the new expansions are in response to growing demand for protein therapeutics. The expansion deal has allotted $240 million for the Melbourne facility and $210 million for the facility in Kankakee, Illinois.

The expansion in Kankakee is expected to be complete by 2017 and will increase capacity of the facility by 300,000 square feet. CSL projects the new expansion in Melbourne, which will include two new manufacturing modules, will be complete in 2018.

The primary function of the new space in both locations will be to ramp up production of Albumin and intermediate pastes, products which form the building blocks of a wide variety of CSL’s biotherapeutic treatments.

CSL reports that these substantial expansions come in response to a global demand for protein plasma therapies.

CSL’s product portfolio includes treatments for a variety of rare diseases, such as von Willebrand disease, hemophilia, primary immunodeficiency, hereditary Angioedema, Fibrinogen deficiency, and genetic emphysema.

The new space in Melbourne is the second expansion the property has undergone this year. In May, CSL opened a $250 million R&D facility, dedicated to the development of new hemophilia treatments.

CSL announced last month that the last patient in its phase 3 clinical study of its product fibrinogen had been treated. The study is evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment when administered to control bleeding during aortic aneurysm surgery.

Niels Rahe-Meyer, anesthesiologist at Franziskus Hospital in Germany and coordinating investigator of the study, said, “Given the limitations of current treatment options, new safe and effective therapies are important for protecting cardiovascular surgery patients from severe bleeding and transfusion-associated adverse effects.”