Bone Therapeutics to build new manufacturing facility in Belgium

Biopharmaceutical company Bone Therapeutics has announced that it has made a €10m investment in Skeletal Cell Therapy Support (SCTS) to build a new manufacturing facility at Gosselies Scientific Park near Brussels in Belgium.

The new manufacturing facility, which is funded through equity and loans basis from ING and BNP Paribas Fortis and subsidies from the Walloon Region, will produce its unique bone cell therapy products on a commercial scale.

The new facility will manufacture Bone Therapeutics’s major product PREOB, an autologous bone cell therapy product currently in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of osteonecrosis, under GMP conditions.

The facility, which is expected to be completed by 2015, will initially include six class B production cells across 1.950m2 space and will be able to produce up to 5.000 batches per annum at full capacity.

In addition to this, the facility will also accommodate a 1.300m2 space for a quality control and research activities.

After completion of the new facility, Bone Therapeutics will be headquartered at the factory. Bone Therapeutics chief executive officer Enrico Bastianelli said the company is collaborating with local venture to build a dedicated cell therapy industrial manufacturing facility in Wallonia.

“Securing access to these state of the art facilities is in line with Bone Therapeutics’ strategy to become a successful commercial stage company and to support the potential commercialization of our lead product PREOB®, which is now ready for manufacturing and scale up,”Bastianelli added.