A new £350 million bioscience facility in Ulverston has signed a major agreement with a global firm to optimise its processes.
Lakes BioScience has signed the agreement with Cytiva.
Lakes BioScience will manufacture antibody therapies at a specially designed and built plant, which will link up with the UK’s leading network of biopharma research and development organisations as well as learning and training institutions.
It will create 250 jobs.
Margret Oland, business development manager enterprise solutions at Cytiva, said: “It’s a beneficial relationship for both. We want to be part of Lakes BioScience’s exciting journey.
“The Lakes BioScience management team’s extensive knowledge and hands-on expertise provides a strong level of trust in their success.
“We both want to be very flexible and agile, using digital tools.
“With a blank canvas they can put all this in place from the start. They can be the operation they want to be from the start which brings lots of possibilities and opportunities to grow with the future needs of therapeutics
“Starting from scratch gives you the opportunity to operate differently and implement new ways of working and gives you the ability to introduce new technologies.”
Derek Willison-Parry, CEO of Lakes BioScience, said: “The Lakes BioScience business is going to create a global CDMO which is able to be dynamic and agile in its UK manufacturing capability to meet changing market requirements. Our initial manufacturing capability will include monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) therapies, mRNA vaccines and biosimilars.”
