Daiichi Sankyo Expands German Manufacturing Hub

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--One of Japan's leading pharmaceutical companies, Daiichi Sankyo Propharma Company Limited has unveiled a 1 billion-euro (US$1.09 billion) investment to expand its drug making operations in Germany.

Expansion works are already underway to add antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) production to its mainly cardiovascular drug manufacturing site at Pfaffenhofen in Bavaria to transform it into an "international innovation center." In addition to more production capacities in the area of ​​cardiovascular diseases, new laboratories will be created, particularly for ADCs, which combine the targeted therapy of an antibody with the potency of chemotherapy. In the future, novel cancer therapies targeting breast, lung and stomach cancer, among others, will be developed and manufactured at the site.

Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach commented: "The billion-dollar investment by Daiichi Sankyo is very good news for patients and for Germany as a pharmaceutical location. The pharmaceutical strategy and the digitalization of our healthcare system strengthen Germany as a location for research and production. The fact that we are researching and developing novel therapeutic methods motivates us as the federal government to further accelerate the strategy of promoting pharmaceutical research and production. To achieve this, we are removing bureaucratic hurdles with the Medical Research Act and creating quick approval channels. We also enable the use of health data for research projects."

Roughly 350 new jobs for researchers, process engineers and biotechnicians will be created when the work is completed by 2030. A new 40,000-square-foot building will be commissioned in 2026. "We are on our way to becoming one of the world's leading oncology companies. We are building on the ongoing successes with our cardiovascular medications and by expanding our oncology activities, we would like to make an even greater contribution to medical progress in the future," said Masahiro Kato, managing director and chairman of the board of Daiichi Sankyo Europe. "With its many years of expertise, our Pfaffenhofen location has all the prerequisites for this."

More than 700 employees work at Pfaffenhofen, 60 kilometers north of Munich. Daiichi Sankyo made a big push into the cancer sector last year. In October, it inked a partnership deal with Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK) (Rathway, New Jersey) that could be worth up to US$22 billion. Merck & Co. will pay US$4 billion to start with an additional US$1.5 billion in contingency payments over the next two years, while further payments topping US$16 billion could be forthcoming in the future dependent on certain milestones. Merck will help co-develop Daiichi Sankyo's patritumab deruxtecan (HER3-DXd), ifinatamab deruxtecan (I-DXd) and raludotatug deruxtecan (R-DXd) ADC candidates, which are in different phases of clinical trials. In December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted priority review to the biologics license application (BLA) seeking approval for patritumab deruxtecan (HER3-DXd) to treat certain lung cancer.

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