St. Louis (Dec. 6, 2011) – Gallus BioPharmaceuticals (Gallus) was recognized at the Greater St. Louis Top 50 awards ceremony on November 15th 2011 for its establishment as a new contract manufacturing business, its regional contributions, and its positive impact to the business community. The recognition involved the successful acquisition of the FDA-approved, commercially-certified biologics manufacturing plant and 160 of its employees from Centocor Biologics, LLC earlier in 2011.
Over 700 business leaders attended the awards ceremony with 50 companies being recognized for their growth. Dick Fleming, Chairman of the Regional Chamber and Growth Association, welcomed Gallus to St. Louis and said “Gallus represents the growth of the BioBelt in the Mid-west and an outstanding example of the rejuvenation of a site with a successful history.”
Gallus also announced completion of the first phase of a $20 million expansion of the site with the addition of new state-of-the-art process and analytical development laboratory suites. To supplement current process and analytical capabilities, Gallus has supplied the laboratories with a significant amount of new downstream process and analytical equipment and also partnered with Xcellerex to equip the new cell culture suites with 10L and 50L disposable bioreactors. Gallus President and CEO, Mark Bamforth, said “the expansion of the site’s development capabilities will enable Gallus to support a greater number of clients”. The addition comes as part of a larger expansion currently underway at Gallus to increase the clinical and commercial production capacity of its existing facility, which is already producing commercial products. Mr. Bamforth added “The expansion of disposable capacity at Gallus reflects the growing demand in the biopharmaceutical industry for a cost-effective development and manufacturing solution required for early phase drug development that disposables provide.” Gallus has also increased its staff by approximately 15% and will continue to grow over the next six months to support the ongoing expansion.
About Gallus Biopharmaceuticals
Gallus Biopharmaceuticals is a premier biologics contract manufacturing organization based in St. Louis, MO. Gallus operates an FDA-approved, commercially-certified facility formerly owned by Centocor Biologics, LLC. The Gallus facility has capabilities for mammalian cell culture and protein purification in both perfusion and fed-batch mode and is being expanded to offer additional development and clinical services capabilities. The plant currently produces two leading commercial biologics products, distributed globally.