Wacker has announced plans to invest $30 million to expand its facility in Jena, Germany. The expansion will cover the GMP production facility as well as the construction of a new building for process development and quality control.

“The new facilities will enable us to greatly accelerate our growth in the attractive biologics market,” states Dr. Gerhard Schmid, president of Wacker Fine Chemicals, the Group’s biotech and fine chemicals division.

The investment involves two expansion projects. The first project will double the manufacturing space at the existing GMP facility, partly by adding a completely new purification station to help ease bottlenecks. This station will also comply with GMP pharmaceutical manufacturing standards, in accordance with FDA and EMEA regulations, the company assures. The expansion will give Wacker Biotech the capacity customers need for biologics that are almost ready for market supply. The new facility is scheduled to come on stream at the end of 2009.

The second project concerns a new process-development and quality-control building. The focus here is on a proprietary E. coli-based protein secretion technology developed by Wacker. The company’s Wacker Biotech subsidiary is expanding its process-development facilities to meet increasing customer demand. Wacker Biotech’s quality control labs are being expanded, as well, to enable the company to satisfy  demand for detailed product and process characterization. The new building is scheduled for completion in late 2008.