Fujifilm plans to spend $4.5 billion by 2028 towards instituting new biopharmaceutical plants
Fujifilm Holdings (Tokyo, Japan) is set to invest 700 billion yen (US $4.5 billion) by 2028 to develop its biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing business globally, as client pharmaceutical companies are increasingly outsourcing to minimize costs.
Biopharmaceuticals, which boast superior targeting of cancer cells compared to chemically synthesized drugs, are manufactured using genetic engineering and cell culture techniques. Given the substantial investments required to create appropriate facilities for cell cultivation, pharmaceutical firms are increasingly turning to outsourcing production to companies like Fujifilm, which possess the necessary capabilities.
Fujifilm ventured into the biopharmaceutical sector in 2011 and their cumulative investment is projected to surpass 1 trillion yen (US $6.5 billion). In 2022, Fujifilm were ranked fourth globally in this sector, as reported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan. With new investments, the company is solidifying its position in the market against its competition, such as Lonza (Basel, Switzerland), Wuxi Biologics (Shanghai, China) and Samsung Biologics (Incheon, South Korea).
You may also be interested in:
- Panel discussion: considerations and challenges of new modalities in bioanalysis
- Strategy and validation of a nonclinical generic plug-and-play antidrug antibody method for human monoclonal antibody biotherapeutics
- In the Zone: smart biomarker assays
Fujifilm anticipates its sales to soar to 500 billion yen by the fiscal year ending March 2029, marking a more than twofold increase from the previous fiscal year (2023). According to the research company Mordor Intelligence (Hyderabad, India), the biopharmaceutical market is projected to surge to US $27.9 billion by 2029, an 80% increase from 2024.
Fujifilm continues to invest in its facilities and is set to inject an extra US $1.2 billion into supplying a plant currently being built in North Carolina (USA) with additional equipment. Additionally, Fujifilm intends to ramp up investments in various other sites, including Japan and Europe, with the goal of upping their total production capacity to around 750,000 liters by 2028, five times their current capacities.
