MOSCOW (MRC) -- German pharma and life sciences major Merck KGaA (MRK: DE) today announced the opening its M Lab Collaboration Center in Shanghai, China, the company’s largest of nine centers worldwide, said Chemweek.
Merck Innovation Hub, the first in China, started in late 2019, with the company announcing a 100 million renminbi (USD14 million) seed fund injected into the China Innovation Hub.
“With the booming pharmaceutical industry in Asia and greater emphasis on novel drug therapies, we see an increase in R&D on leading-edge treatments including cell and gene therapies in China,” said Udit Batra, a member of the Merck executive board and chief executive, Life Science. “Our M Lab Collaboration Center offers customizable solutions and services that help bio pharmaceutical and biologics companies improve their processes from drug discovery, development to manufacturing — saving costs and increasing speed to market,” he added.
With a total lab size of approximately 10,000m2, Merck’s newest M Lab Collaboration Center is located in Pudong, at the heart of the biomedical sciences and research community in Shanghai.
It includes pilot scale and process development support labs that offer non-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) lab space where pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers can explore ideas, learn innovative techniques and work side-by-side with the company's scientists and engineers to solve critical process development and production challenges.
As mRC informed earlier, Merck celebrated the opening of its new packaging center at the science and technology company’s headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany. The new 161,458-square-foot facility will be dedicated to the packaging and shipping of Merck’s current portfolio of pharma medicines in more than 90 countries and help meet increasing patient needs for flagship medicines Glucophage®, Concor and Euthyrox in the areas of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and thyroid disorders respectively. It will also provide capacity for potential future pharma products currently in clinical development such as evobrutinib in the area of neurology-immunology or tepotinib in the area of oncology.
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