Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has opened its new Bioprocessing Collaboration Center (BCC) in St. Louis, MO.

The facility is adjacent to the company’s biologics manufacturing facility, which recently doubled production capacity with a $50 million expansion. The combined bioproduction and pharma services businesses aims to accelerate innovation and enhance productivity for biopharma companies, enabling them to meet the growing need for more flexible, scalable biologics development and manufacturing solutions.

In 2019, four in 10 drugs in development were biologics, driving demand for innovative development and manufacturing solutions. The BCC will bring together the company’s GMP biologics manufacturing with its bioprocessing technologies including bioreactors, cell culture media, chromatography and analytical tools, among others. This collaboration aims to deliver new single-use bioprocessing technologies as well as drive critical process, data management and quality improvements that enable scale-up solutions for biopharma customers.

“Our St. Louis site is among the world’s largest producers of biologics using single-use technology and the ideal location for this unique collaboration,” said Michael Shafer, senior vice president and president, pharma services, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “These complementary businesses will work together to develop innovative bioprocessing technologies, products and services. This will enhance bioprocess workflows and enable our customers to take their products to market faster and with greater efficiency.”