Merck KGaA’s MilliporeSigma invests $286M to build out biosafety testing

MilliporeSigma, the US and Canadian life science division of Merck KGaA, is plunking down almost $300 million to boost biosafety testing in the US.

The company said it will invest $286 million to bulk up biosafety testing at its manufacturing site in Rockville, MD. The new, 250,000-square-foot facility expansion will extend its capacity for biosafety testing, analytical development, viral clearance suites and services for cell bank manufacturing. MilliporeSigma didn’t detail project timeline in its announcement and did not responded to a request for comment from Endpoints News by press time.

The expansion is the largest investment in contract testing in the company’s history, Merck KGaA CEO of life science Matthias Heinzel said in a press release.

Belén Garijo

Merck KGaA CEO Belén Garijo added that the “significant investments in Rockville and other sites across our global network will help us meet growing demand for the robust testing studies that biologics manufacturers depend upon to comply with stringent regulatory guidelines.”

The Rockville site currently employs around 600 people, and the expansion is expected to add another 500 jobs.

The move comes on the heels of several other Merck KGaA and MilliporeSigma investments in manufacturing sites this year both in the US and Europe. In the summer, the MilliporeSigma production facility in Verona, WI, near the state capitol of Madison, opened a $65 million, 70,000-square-foot new expansion on an existing site to produce highly potent APIs. Also in Wisconsin, the company received a large contract from the DoD to expand its Sheboygan, WI plant to make materials for rapid diagnostic tests.

In Europe, MilliporeSigma dropped €130 million ($129 million) to expand its site in Molsheim, France, to install more single-use assemblies as part of the production of Covid-19 vaccines and other therapeutics. The investment in that 50-year-old site is expected to add around 800 jobs by 2028.

manufacturing
therapeutics
vaccines
biologics