Pfenex, Inc.’s manufacturing partner, Serum Institute of India Ltd., began construction of a new large-scale cGMP production facility for CRM197, which is used in a number of conjugate vaccines for diseases such as meningitis and pneumococcal bacterial infections. Pfenex CRM197 is a recombinant form expressed in Pseudomonas fluorescens using the Pfenex Expression Technology platform.
 
This new facility is scheduled for completion in 2014 and will be dedicated CRM197 production with annual capacity to produce in excess of 50 kg of cGMP-grade CRM197. Serum Institute uses Pfenex Expression Technology as the production platform, enabling high titers of high quality conjugate vaccine carrier protein. 
 
“CRM197 is increasingly being used by the global vaccine development community, and this new facility allows us to not only meet the growing needs of our current partners, but also allows us to support new research and development efforts,” said Dr. Bertrand Liang, chief executive officer of Pfenex Inc. “By leveraging our long standing relationship with Serum Institute of India, we are able to further provide our partners with access to high quality vaccine components produced using the powerful Pfenex Expression Technology™, all the way from early stage research through the clinic and into commercialization.”