Japan's Asahi Kasei to establish facility in US and launch plasmid DNA business

Asahi Kasei Medical's US subsidiary Bionova Scientific, a full-service biologics CDMO, has decided to launch a new business line providing services leveraging plasmid DNA, and establish a dedicated facility for this purpose in Texas, US.

The bioprocess business of Asahi Kasei Medical is one of the 10 Growth Gears (GG10), businesses to lead the next phase of growth, under the Asahi Kasei Group’s medium-term management plan focused on the theme “Be a Trailblazer.”

With the expansion of the biopharmaceuticals market, Asahi Kasei Medical has obtained further growth opportunities by entering the CRO (contract research organization) business and CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) business while leveraging its customer base and brand strength in addition to expanding established businesses such as Planova virus removal filters.

As a biologics CDMO that provides process development and manufacturing services to pharmaceutical companies, Bionova is well regarded for its capability of process development for complex next-generation antibody-based drugs whose manufacture tends to be difficult. 

The global plasmid manufacturing market is expected to grow at double-digit rates over the next several years due to the rapid growth of new modalities such as cell and gene therapies. Bionova has decided to contribute to accelerating the growth of such new modalities by leveraging its expertise of manufacturing process development, GMP manufacturing know-how, flexible customer support, and industry network in the targeted new modalities.

For process development and GMP manufacturing of plasmids, Bionova will establish a new facility in The Woodlands, Texas, US. Service provision is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2025 for process development and in the first half of 2026 for GMP manufacturing.