Located about 100 miles northwest of Houston, the College Station plant will become one of the largest single-use medical device manufacturing campuses in North America once the expansion is complete, according to Fujifilm Diosynth. Coupled with burgeoning biomanufacturing and life sciences sectors in Houston, the project is among several that economic developers hope will continue to put Texas on the map as an emerging cluster of biotech innovation.
“The economic impact of FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies’ new facility in College Station will be immense for Texas,” said Adriana Cruz, executive director of Texas Economic Development and Tourism in a statement. “Not only is it a significant capital investment creating 150 new skilled jobs, it will also strengthen Texas’ expertise in biotech and life sciences.”
Fujifilm Diosynth, a partnership between Fujifilm and Mitsubishi Corp., is a contract development and manufacturing company. It provides drug development, viral gene therapies, vaccines and biopharmaceuticals manufacturing in partnership with pharmaceutical firms.
Fujifilm’s 300,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in College Station is near the Texas A&M Health Science Center campus. In 2020, Texas A&M and Fujifilm together were selected for a $265 million contract to produce a coronavirus vaccine at Fujifilm’s facility in College Station, and production started on the COVID vaccines by January 2021.
The College Station site was considered a strong contender in the company’s search for a place to build a new $2 billion facility, but ultimately Fujifilm chose North Carolina for the project instead.
Although Texas lost the investment for the larger project, Fujifilm is still investing in upgrading its College Station campus. First, there was a smaller, 60,000-square-foot, $55 million addition to the Texas campus with a facility known as the Advance Therapies Innovation Center that officially opened that center in November 2021, a spokeswoman previously said.
Now the company is further adding to its College Station presence with a 138,000 square-foot expansion that will add more space for bioreactors and associated purification equipment. The facility will be used to make single-use, disposable device technology.
The expansion was made possible in part by a $1.5 million grant from the state’s Texas Enterprise Fund, which provides grants to companies promising to create jobs.(In this case there will be 150 new jobs.)
College Station mayor Karl Mooney delivered a proclamation changing the name of the street where the Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies facility is located from 3939 Biomedical Way to 3939 Fujifilm Way.
“College Station has become a city of innovation, thanks in considerable measure to our emerging biotech industry,” said Mayor Mooney in a statement. “And Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies is leading the way here among contract development and manufacturing organizations.”
This content was originally published here.
