Expansion of Life Science Production Capacities

“The glob­al coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic has sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased demand for our sin­gle-use and virus fil­tra­tion tech­nolo­gies, which we are sup­ply­ing to more than 50 dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies work­ing on Covid-19 vac­cine can­di­dates,” said Chris Ross, inter­im head, Life Sci­ence, at Mer­ck. “These invest­ments will strength­en our glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing foot­print, allow­ing us to meet this unprece­dent­ed demand and help get life­sav­ing vac­cines and ther­a­pies to more patients, faster.”

This expan­sion will add 6,000 square meters of space to the Dan­vers sin­gle-use assem­bly oper­a­tion, adding to the exist­ing 11,000-square-meter facil­i­ty. The expan­sion will add the capac­i­ty need­ed to sup­port the man­u­fac­tur­ing of prod­ucts across sev­er­al port­fo­lios, includ­ing Merck’s sin­gle-use con­sum­ables. The total invest­ment in Dan­vers is about € 21 mil­lion and will add approx­i­mate­ly 400 jobs through­out 2021.
The Jaf­frey expan­sion plans include adding 2,300 square meters to the exist­ing 24,000-square-meter facil­i­ty. The addi­tion­al capac­i­ty includes new pro­duc­tion lines and equip­ment to sup­port the man­u­fac­tur­ing of fil­tra­tion devices and mem­brane prod­ucts, specif­i­cal­ly fil­ters. These prod­ucts are used to ensure the steril­i­ty of many life­sav­ing ther­a­pies and to remove viral con­t­a­m­i­na­tion for a vari­ety of ther­a­pies. The total invest­ment in Jaf­frey is about  € 18.5 mil­lion. This expan­sion is expect­ed to bring near­ly 275 roles by 2022, once the expan­sion is completed.
These expan­sions join the Life Sci­ence invest­ments announced in 2020 to fur­ther enhance capa­bil­i­ties and capac­i­ty in Buchs, Switzer­land; Carls­bad, Cal­i­for­nia, USA; Madi­son, Wis­con­sin, USA; and Darm­stadt, Ger­many, broad­en­ing the company’s glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing footprint.