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BIOPROCESSING INDUSTRY
With approximately one-fourth of new drugs coming on the market being biopharmaceuticals
and annual sales projected to surpass 40 billions Euro by 2010,
there is a growing thirst for raw materials,
equipment and
contract production
to support bioprocesses such as mass cell culture, centrifugal cell separation, filtration,
several types of chromatographic separation and the creation of stable final formulations,
probably including lyophilisation of the final product.
Most of this demand comes from the US, which now comprises more than 1,500 biotech companies
with revenues just over 72 billions USD, whereas Europe is lagging behind with 17 per cent
of the global market and revenues approximating 10 billions Euro.
The Asia/Pacific region has around 700 companies with revenues of $2bn but is catching up.
The drugs they make vary from antibiotics, hormones and enzymes to monoclonal antibodies, prophylactic agents and immune and cell response modifiers. These are produced using microbial or animal cell expression systems or in transgenic animals or plants.
One of the most significant markets in the bioprocessing industry is in the supply of culture media and their components. In this sector, the supply of animal blood serum-based media supplements, especially fetal bovine serum, is experiencing change as there has been a drive toward the use of serum-free media to improve safety and reduce processing. This international business is split between two major players, Invitrogen and HyClone, and about four smaller suppliers.
As far as capital equipment is concerned, which represents about 40 per cent of the cost of a new good manufacturing practice (GMP) facility, the market has seen significant condensation, in which multifirm companies are still acquiring more smaller companies and adding to their product range and geographical coverage.
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