Sai Life Sciences, a contract research, development and manufacturing organization (CRDMO), has unveiled plans to double its headcount and expand its suite of technical capabilities at its Manchester, UK site, a center of excellence for active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) process and analytical development serving an expanding list of global clients.
 
“We are truly heartened by our customers’ response to our Manchester site,” said Krishna Kanumuri, chief executive officer and managing director, Sai Life Sciences. “The site serves as a vital bridge to our pilot and manufacturing facilities in India, enabling seamless integration with the rest of our service offerings across the USA and India, spanning the drug discovery, development, and commercialization continuum. This expansion will further enhance our ability to add value to the NCE pipelines of our customers.”
 
The Sai Life Sciences’ Manchester site became fully operational in August 2020, onboarded 24 members of staff and has since delivered multiple projects involving complex chemistry. With a growing interest from customers across the UK, Europe and U.S., the present expansion involves an increase in capacity from 20 to 75 fume cupboards and an increase in headcount from 24 to 50+ scientists. A further expansion will see the addition of a GMP Kilo Lab later in 2021. The company has recently commenced recruitment for multiple positions across API process and analytical research and development, particle sciences and engineering.
 
Located in the heart of the Alderley Park life-sciences ecosystem, Sai Life Sciences’ Manchester site creates opportunities for UK and EU based pharma companies and biotechs to have easier face-to-face collaboration with its scientists, and to provide easier collaboration with US based clients due to reduced time zone differences. The center of excellence is well-positioned to provide world-class development, scale-up and technology transfer to the Indian sites as and when required. This new expansion will also add capability in several key areas including process analytical technology (PAT), crystallization development and physical properties analysis.
 
Sai Life Sciences is currently amid an organization-wide transformation. It is investing $150 million during 2019-23, as part of the Sai Nxt initiative, across three core areas – people & culture, processes & automation, infrastructure & scientific capabilities.
 
Sai has recently begun recruitment for multiple positions across API process and analytical research and development, particle sciences and engineering.