Germany-based Vibalogics has expanded its capabilities with a new automatic vial filling line to meet increased demand from biotechnology companies for its specialist live biological manufacturing services for human and veterinary vaccines, gene therapeutics and live virus vectors.

The investment by the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) extends its aseptic fill and finish capability by around 300%, reinforcing its ability to support early phase biologic supply needs for Phase I and II clinical trials.

Operating from a multi-product BSL-2 facility in northern Germany, family-owned Vibalogics specializes in the handling and manufacture of viruses and live bacterial products for therapeutic and prophylactic applications.

Its new Bosch ARF 1020 filling machine will enable Vibalogics to fill 7,200 vials per hour with a maximum validated batch size for automatic liquid filling of 30,000 vials. This is complemented by a Seidenader visual inspection station and automatic labelling machine to handle the larger batch sizes.

“Our contract services business specializes in the aseptic processing of live biological products. The new filling line provides state of the art technology to meet the growing demand for this service from clients across the world,” said Dr. Stefan Beyer, managing director, Vibalogics.

According to the company, the motive behind the investment was to establish more manufacturing capacity in order to be prepared for outbreaks of infectious diseases like the Ebola virus case in 2014/15.

“We also wanted to ensure customers from small biotechs and well-established pharma could benefit from greater quality, scale and faster processing times, which can be critical with the types of products we handle,” said Dr. Beyer.

From its facility in Cuxhaven, Germany, Vibalogics provides process development and GMP manufacturing services, with a particular focus on aseptic processing of live viruses and live bacteria.

This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No. 115850. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and EFPIA.