Large-Scale Manufacturing Plant Now Operational
Biogen, Inc. (NASDAQ/BGEN) announced today that it has been chosen by Fluor Corporation as a 2001 Project Excellence Award winner for its large-scale manufacturing plant (LSM) in its Research Triangle Park, North Carolina facility.
For over a decade, Fluor Corporation, a global engineering and construction services company, has presented the Hugh K. Coble Project Excellence Award to recognize outstanding project team performance. Biogen’s LSM was chosen from over 800 active efforts for this prestigious award. Fluor Corporation provided the engineering, procurement, construction, and validation services for the project.
This manufacturing facility is the latest example of Biogen’s expertise in world-class protein manufacturing, both in quality and scale. Fluor cited the facility for its exceptional design, innovative modular construction methods, and strong safety record. The $173 million project finished one month ahead of schedule. Biogen has begun manufacturing product in the LSM in order to complete the validation requirements necessary for regulatory authorities to approve the facility for commercial use.
In July 1999, Biogen broke ground on the LSM, a 250,000 square foot large-scale manufacturing plant with the capability to run up to 120,000 liters of bioreactor capacity. It is one of the largest cell culture manufacturing facilities in the world. Once the LSM is approved for commercial use, it will have the flexibility to manufacture multiple products in the company’s pipeline.
Sylvie Gregoire, Pharm. D., Biogen’s Executive Vice President for Technical Operations said, “Biogen was pleased to partner with Fluor to build a world-class manufacturing facility that we are confident has achieved an industry benchmark. We began manufacturing product just 32 months after groundbreaking, and we are enjoying a seamless start-up of the facility. The LSM provides us with multi-product capacity and continues our commitment to being a leader in biologics manufacturing.”
About Fluor
Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance, and project management. Headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, Fluor is a Fortune 500 company with revenues of $9 billion in fiscal year 2001. For more information, visit: http://www.fluor.com.
About Biogen
Biogen, Inc., winner of the U.S. National Medal of Technology, is a biotechnology
company principally engaged in discovering and developing drugs for human healthcare through genetic engineering. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, the Company’s revenues are generated from U.S. and European sales of AVONEX® (Interferon beta-1a) for treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, (Please see full prescribing information at http://www.avonex.com.), and from the worldwide sales by licensees of a number of products, including alpha interferon and hepatitis B vaccines and diagnostic products. Biogen’s research and development activities are focused on novel products to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, neurological diseases, cancer, fibrosis and congestive heart failure. The Company maintains active clinical research programs in protein therapeutics, small molecules, genomics and gene therapy. For copies of press releases and additional information about the Company, please consult Biogen’s homepage on the World Wide Web at http://www.biogen.com.