Serum industry booming, Invitrogen to spend $3m on Aust facility

US life science technologies provider Invitrogen will spend $3 million to expand its cGMP facilities for manufacturing bovine serum-based products and reagents in NSW.

The 1000 square metre facility, which will be located in the upper Hunter Valley, is likely to be up and running in April 2005, according to Invitrogen CEO Greg Lucier, who visited Australia this week.

Bovine serum is typically used in cell culture growth media, for both basic research and for the production of vaccines and biotherapeutic drugs. Serum from Australia and New Zealand is increasingly in demand due to the lack of cattle diseases including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth disease and rinderpest.

"Due to mad cow disease much of the serum industry is migrating here," Lucier said. "More and more of our customers are saying that if it's not Australian-derived, we don't want it. It's not worth the risk of BSE if you're going to make a drug."

The facility will allow Invitrogen to vertically integrate the bovine serum production process in Australia from the cattle farmer to the end product, he said. Currently the serum-based products are exported to the US for completion.

Lucier said the company would also continue to review opportunities to expand its operations in Australia as it seeks to form partnerships and collaborations with researchers to develop new technologies for life science research and development.

"What we are doing now is finding key clients around the world that we want to collaborate with -- so that we're not just selling them our products but accessing technologies that we can help to sell around the world," he said.

"We're in active discussion with many of our clients about how our relationship can become two-way."

Invitrogen's product lines range from its original base in cloning and molecular biology tools to proteomics, RNAi and bioinformatics, as well as cell culture products and tools for drug discovery.