Cambrex Strengthens API Manufacturing with Waltham Facility Upgrade

Cambrex, a leading global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), announced that Snapdragon Chemistry, a Cambrex company, has expanded its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) facility in Waltham, Massachusetts to further support the development and manufacturing of peptide therapies.

"We designed this facility with a three-step strategy in mind for the development of peptide drug candidates," said Dr. Eric Fang, General Manager at Snapdragon Chemistry. "We start with automated SPPS technology for proof-of-concept. In parallel, we optimize the process using LPPS technology to accelerate development and reduce manufacturing cost. We can then transfer the process to our large manufacturing facilities, such as Charles City, Iowa, to produce materials in traditional large batch reactors, significantly reducing the cost of those drugs."

Snapdragon's LPPS technology utilizes traditional API batch reactors and continuous flow, obviating the dependency on specialized, solid-phase reactors. This new LPPS technology materially reduces solvent demand and the need for excess reagents compared to standard solid-state peptide synthesis processes.

"SPPS certainly has its place. We use it in early development to get to the clinic and to proof-of-concept quickly, but it's not a scalable solution if you want to supply a huge patient population," said Dr. Matt Bio, Chief Scientific Officer, Cambrex. "We designed the LPPS process so that we can leverage all 1.4 million Liters of capacity within Cambrex to deliver peptide therapies."

Cambrex continues to invest in R&D across complex synthetic modalities, including further innovation for peptide manufacturing, as well as new research on the application of artificial intelligence for the optimization of oligonucleotide processes.