CALIFORNIAN biotech Life Technologies will today unveil a $20 million (£12m) expansion of its manufacturing facilities at Inchinnan, after the Renfrewshire site saw off competition for the investment from fellow company locations in the US and China.
A spokesman for Life Technologies said the investment would create 20 to 30 "life sciences-based" jobs initially, with potential for further employment creation depending on demand for the Gibco cell-culture products for biological drug research, development, and production which are manufactured at Inchinnan.
Gibco cell-culture media products support the growth of a variety of different mammalian cell lines.
Life Technologies said it expected to break ground on the extension at Inchinnan in 2013, and to start to ship product from the new facility in 2014.
At the moment, Life Technologies employs more than 500 people at Inchinnan, where it has been manufacturing for about 20 years.
Of this workforce at Inchinnan, 180 are involved in manufacturing, including support staff and distribution workers.
The Inchinnan site is also home to Life Technologies' finance centre for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and to sales and marketing and legal staff.
Life Technologies, which supplies products from Inchinnan to universities and pharmaceuticals companies, emphasised the $20m investment was "linked to ongoing support from Scottish Enterprise" to expand its global manufacturing network for proprietary "Advanced Granulated Technology" and dry powder media under the Gibco brand.
The firm described the AGT media as "the fastest-growing segment in the Gibco cell-culture portfolio", noting it was used in many commercial and late-phase drugs. It added: "This offering provides biopharmaceutical customers and contract manufacturing organisation partners with a ready-to-use media format that eliminates time-consuming steps in media preparation and uses only animal origin-free components."
Life Technologies said the $20m investment "secures the supply chain for Europe, Americas, and Asia".
Gregory T Lucier, chairman and chief executive officer of the Nasdaq-listed Life Technologies, said: "We are pleased to be partnering with the Scottish Government on this important project and are grateful for its support. Our investment in this facility now provides a secure, complementary supply chain source for media used in life-saving therapeutics while also addressing the growing global demand for our cell-culture media products, specifically AGT."
He added: "We have a skilled workforce in Scotland whose commitment gives us a competitive advantage."
Scottish Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "This investment is a welcome boost for Scotland's economy. Scotland's life sciences research is rightly regarded as among the very best in the world, and developments like this help to continue to build on that enviable reputation for the future."
The spokesman for Life Technologies noted the investment would create construction jobs.
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