UCB to invest €300 million

UCB to invest €300 million creating 150 new jobs in new biotech plant

International bio-pharmaceuticals company UCB, based in Brussels, is to invest €300 million in a new biotechnology plant in Braine l’Alleud in Walloon Brabant, creating 150 new jobs. The company already employs 1,800 people at the site south of Brussels.

The investment is a further step in the company’s mutation from chemical production of drugs to biological production. Several new products created in this way are expected to move out of clinical testing and be cleared for sale on the open market in the coming years, led by a preparation for the skin condition psoriasis.

But the new method of production, using monoclonal antibodies – antibodies created from immune cells cloned from a single parent cell – requires new production facilities, which will be housed in the new unit, which will be additional to one in Switzerland. “A large share of our worldwide production of these new drugs should be produced in the new factory,” a spokesperson for UCB said. The unit will be able to handle the production of different types of medication – whose names end in -mab to indicate the use of monoclonal antibodies) at the same time.

Source: The Brussels Times