FUJIFILM Corporation, announced that it has completed the acquisition of Kalon Biotherapeutics, LLC, a biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing organization having expertise in vaccine manufacturing on December 8, 2014, and FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies Texas, LLC (FDBT) started to operate.
On October 22, 2014, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies U.S.A., Inc. (FDBU), a FUJIFILM subsidiary and a biopharmaceutical CMO, signed an Interest Purchase Agreement, with the owners of Kalon: the State of Texas, acting by and through the Office of the Governor, and The Texas A and M University System (TAMUS).
Based on the Interest Purchase Agreement, FDBU acquired 49% of the total membership interests in Kalon and appointed a majority of Kalon's board members from Fujifilm Group.
Thereafter, FDBU plans to increase its interest share up to 100% based on certain milestones set forth in the Interest Purchase Agreement.
FUJIFILM held the acquisition Closing Ceremony and celebrated the new start as FDBT at the George H.W.
Bush Library in College Station, Texas, the U.S., on December 18 (local time).
FDBT employs world class technologies for robust, high containment manufacturing*4, thereby enabling safe, stable manufacture of vaccines to be used as public medical countermeasures against threats such as pandemic influenza, Ebola and Anthrax.
Additionally, Kalon utilizes state-of-the-art mobile clean rooms (MCRs) featuring high containment, compactness and mobility. The MCRs enable concurrent manufacturing of several types of vaccines. Moreover, these MCRs are suitable not only for vaccines, but also for all kinds of biopharmaceuticals, including antibodies, and meet the growing demand for high-variety low-volume manufacturing.
FUJIFILM entered biopharmaceutical CMO business by acquiring FDBU and FUJIFILM Diosynth
Biotechnologies UK Limited (FDBK) from Merck and Co., Inc in 2011 and has been expanding their businesses through the partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation, who has extensive experiences in the pharmaceutical business.
FUJIFILM intends to expand its biopharmaceutical business by establishing one-stop services for the wide variety of needs for vaccine manufacturing, combining Kalon's expertise and the already-available high-end technologies of microbial culture (pAVEwayTM), mammalian cell culture (ApolloTM) and insect cell culture.
