Manufacturing The process required to manufacture biological products at a large scale is at least as important as the scientific research involved in developing a vaccine. The importance of manufacturing is further heightened by the worldwide scarcity of high-quality manufacturing facilities for biological products like vaccines. We have invested in developing our own manufacturing facility in Canton, MA. This 47,000 sq ft plant is now a state-of-the-art facility that has already been used in the production of more than 200 million doses of Acambis' ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine and is manufacturing supplies of our investigational vaccines against Japanese encephalitis and West Nile. In addition, we are manufacturing supplies of our investigational C. difficile vaccine in a pilot plant in Cambridge, MA. In May 2005, we acquired a lyophilisation (freeze-drying) and fill/finish facility based in Rockville, MD. This now means we have control of the three principal stages of the vaccine manufacturing process - bulk production, purification and fill/finish - and provides the capability to take a vaccine from concept to commercialisation. This is a strategically important acquisition because worldwide Good Manufacturing Practice contract manufacturing capacity for lyophilisation, filling and finishing viral vaccines is increasingly limited
horrible managers located at this plant, just a matter of time before there is a collapse in leadership.
Why keep it open? Sanofi bought the contract for WBM of small pox vaccine, and can make that one batch a year in any of their plants.