CordenPharma Increases Peptide Production

CordenPharma has increased commercial peptide production capacity with upgraded facilities at CordenPharma Colorado, the largest Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS) Manufacturing facility worldwide. This follows the signature of a multi-year large scale peptide manufacturing agreement earlier this year.

After kicking off capital investments in early 2023, CordenPharma completed a series of upgrades and modernizations to the facility, which have increased the efficiency and throughput of SPPS peptide production, allowing for increased capacity to service current and future customers across a growing pharmaceutical innovator base. 

The extensive initiative includes:

• Upgrades to the company's existing 10’000 L reactor volume with a batch size exceeding 400 kg (> 35 Amino Acids), and a yearly capacity of > 2 Metric Tons of Peptide
• A 50% increase in downstream HPLC purification capacity
• Automation upgrades that allow a reduction in overall cycle time, greater scale-up consistency, and the elimination of human error
• Implementation of PAT for amino acid identification to avoid errors in peptide sequence, and ready-to-use process intensification with continuous washing and reaction monitoring
• Modernization of critical infrastructure for increased efficiency of solvent delivery (> 150’000 L) and effluent removal, including the strategic alignment of the deprotection (up to 20' 000 L capacity), cleavage and isolation of crude peptide with the increased SPPS reactor capacity.

“This expansion marks another milestone for CordenPharma, cementing our position as the leading large-scale Peptide CDMO partner to the pharmaceutical and biotech industry," said Dr. Michael Quirmbach, CordenPharma CEO. "Under the leadership of Brian McCudden, I am very proud of our team in Colorado for their great implementation of this challenging project on time and within budget.” 

CordenPharma Colorado is pleased to expand their team of experts to accommodate the overall capacity increase and resulting project demand. On top of its existing workforce of  more than 500 employees, the company plans to add another 60 employees, with additional staff in the future as needed. 

As a continuation of CordenPharma’s 2023 investment strategy across all technology platforms including peptides, the updates of the world’s largest SPPS peptide capacity perfectly complements CordenPharma’s robust end-to-end service offerings with fully integrated sterile injectable capabilities in CordenPharma Caponago (IT), including recently-expanded LNP Formulation and Fill & Finish capacity. 

“CordenPharma is pleased to celebrate the start of peptide production in our newly-upgraded and expanded SPPS manufacturing facility in Colorado with the largest worldwide peptide capacity available," said Dr. Stéphane Varray, CordenPharma Global Peptide Platform director. "These modernizations will allow for increased efficiency, throughput, and access to state-of-the-art technologies for streamlined commercial peptide API supply."