Home Interviews Cytiva expands to meet increased demand

Cytiva expands to meet increased demand

Cytiva

Cytiva expands to meet increased demand

16 August, 2022

The demand for biotech company Cytiva’s products skyrocketed during the pandemic and sales increased by 50 per cent during the period. Now the company is investing in increased production. BioStock has talked to Cecilia Sjöstedt, site leader at Cytiva’s facility in Uppsala, about the expansion.

Cytiva is a global provider of technologies and services that promote and accelerate the development and manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

The company’s products are used in both research and manufacturing of, among other things, the drugs deployed against covid-19. The company has manufacturing abroad and at two locations in Sweden. In Umeå, Cytiva manufactures laboratory and manufacturing equipment used in the research and manufacture of biological drugs and vaccines. Uppsala primarily manufactures chromatography products that are used to purify biomolecules in connection with the production of biological drugs and vaccines.

In June, Cytiva opened a new factory of 1100 square meters for the production of the Sephadex and Cytodex product families. Sephadex products are mainly used to purify plasma-based drugs such as coagulation factors, immunoglobulin and albumia. Patients receiving blood transfusions, or suffering from autoimmune diseases, leukemia, jaundice, or other similar conditions that affect the blood, need plasma-based drugs in their treatments. Cytodex is used for cell culture of adherent cell lines and enables the manufacture of vaccines against polio and Covid-19.

The new factory, that the company began planning for in 2018, will meet the increase in demand for Sephadex for the manufacture of plasma-based drugs around the world. Demand for Cytodex has also skyrocketed, partly as a result of the pandemic.

BioStock has talked to Cecilia Sjöstedt, site leader at Cytiva’s facility in Uppsala, about the expansion.

Cecilia Sjöstedt, site leader at Cytiva’s facility in Uppsala.

Cecilia Sjöstedt explains that the demand for the company’s products has increased significantly over the past two years.

– The demand in the wake of the pandemic has greatly increased our sales between 2020 and 2022. We increased our capacity by about 50 per cent during the pandemic thanks to expanded shifts and investments in new technical capacity. The market for the biological drugs that our customers manufacture is also expected to grow in the long term.

The new initiative is also expected to generate improvements and heighten efficiency in the work process.

– The new facility is not only larger but also better in every respect as it has a better working environment for our employees, it is more sustainable as it uses less chemicals and at the same time it is also more efficient. The expansion project has been ongoing since 2018 so it feels really good that it is now in place after fantastic efforts by our employees.

Moving forward, Cytiva plans to continue expanding. The company is now investing in increased production in the US, among other things.

-Just over a year ago we decided to invest in a new factory for Capto and MabSelect in the US, these are also important products for which the market is expected to grow.

Cytiva has purchased an existing factory in Michigan that will complement the company’s existing production of resins for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

– It has been three years since we inaugurated our Capto and MabSelect facility here in Uppsala with the latest technology in order to be as efficient and sustainable as possible. It is a confirmation that we are doing the right things in Uppsala when a copy is built in the US. The facility will make us even more competitive and help us meet the increasing global demand for our products. All so that we can safely and securely deliver to our customers all over the world, says Cecilia Sjöstedt.

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