biology

WuXi Biologics

WuXi Biologics is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand WuXi Biologics rather than just read about it. In short: WuXi Biologics is a global Contract Research Development and Manufacturing Organization (CRDMO) that provides open-access, integrated technology platforms for biologics drug development. WuXi Biologics' roots date back to 2010, when it was founded as a division of WuXi AppTec and began building out capabilities and facilities required for biologics discovery, development and good manufacturing practices (GMP).

Key takeaways

WuXi Biologics belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect WuXi Biologics to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of WuXi Biologics from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

WuXi Biologics is a global Contract Research Development and Manufacturing Organization (CRDMO) that provides open-access, integrated technology platforms for biologics drug development. WuXi Biologics' roots date back to 2010, when it was founded as a division of WuXi AppTec and began building out capabilities and facilities required for biologics discovery, development and good manufacturing practices (GMP). After being spun off from its parent, WuXi Biologics went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2017. As of 2021, WuXi Biologics has 18 manufacturing sites including ten in China, three in the United States, two in Ireland, two in Germany, and one in Singapore. In August 2020, WuXi Biologics was selected to become a component of the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong. In January 2024, WuXi Biologics' share price fell on news that the United States Congress had introduced legislation to block any federal government contracts with the company due to national security concerns. The concerns stem from allegations, denied by the company, that it has worked closely with the People's Liberation Army as a part of the Chinese Communist Party's military-civil fusion strategy. Members of the United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party subsequently called for sanctions against WuXi Biologics.

Facilities in Asia

Shanghai, China WuXi Biologics has two sites in Shanghai, one in the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone and the other in Fengxian.

Wuxi, China WuXi Biologics has two sites located in Wuxi City, China. The Mashan site contains MFG1, MFG2, MFG4 and MFG5. and the Wuxi New Area site contains labs dedicated to the antibody drug conjugate development and production.

Hangzhou, China As of March 2021, WuXi Biologics will have two sites in Hangzhou China. On March 17, 2021, WuXi Biologics announced an equity agreement with Pfizer China to acquire its newly built $350 million Hangzhou global biotechnology center site and facilities (MFG20). Opened in 2020 and slated to be GMP-ready in 2021, the Hangzhou site (MFG13) is home to facilities dedicated to the development and GMP manufacture of recombinant proteins and plasmid DNA produced via microbial fermentation along with separate facilities for the development and production of a viral-based vaccine.

Suzhou, China As of March 2021, WuXi Biologics will have two sites located in the city of Suzhou, China. On March 18, 2021, WuXi Biologics announced a purchase agreement with CBC Group which will allow it to acquire over a 90% interest in CMAB Biopharma Group. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021. Along with the controlling stake, WuXi Biologics will also acquire a 7000L bioreactor capacity manufacturing facility (MFG21) in Suzhou and associated liquid and lyophilization (DP21) fill and finish production lines. A second site, opened in 2014 is 108,716 sq ft (10,100.0 m2) and was the first non-governmentally affiliated biosafety testing facility in Asia. The facility performs cell line characterization, viral clearance validation studies, and unprocessed bulk lot release.

Chengdu, China Currently slated to open in 2023, the Chengdu facility (MFG12) will be a 1.3×10^6 sq ft (120×10^3 m2), with an integrated manufacturing center for innovative biologics and dedicated to R&D and commercial-scale bulk active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production with an initial bioreactor capacity of 48,000 liters (11,000 imp gal; 13,000 U.S. gal) for commercial production and 5,000 liters (1,100 imp gal; 1,300 U.S. gal) for clinical production.

Shijiazhuang, China Currently slated to open in 2022, the Shijiazhuang facility MFG8 will be 884,363 sq ft (82,160.0 m2) and dedicated to development and API manufacturing with an initial bioreactor capacity of 48,000 liters.

Singapore On May 24, 2018, WuXi Biologics announced it will be building a $60 million facility (MFG10) in Singapore which will feature an initial bioreactor capacity of 4,500 liters made up of two 2,000 liter fed-batch reactors and one 500 liter continuous processing perfusion reactor to open in 2023.

Facilities in Europe

Leverkusen, Germany Facility On January 17, 2020, WuXi Biologics and Bayer announced an acquisition agreement in which WuXi Biologics would take over the operations and lease a 139,931 sq ft (13,000.0 m2) fill site in Leverkusen, Germany. Based on the agreement, the site would perform the final fill-finish of various biologics products produced by WuXi's API sites, and act as a backup for filling operations for Bayer's Kovaltry anti-hemophilic infusions which are primarily finished in another plant in Berkeley, California.

Wuppertal, Germany Facility On December 21, 2020, WuXi Biologics and Bayer announced a new acquisition agreement for a drug substance (DS) production site for €150 million in Wuppertal, Germany.

Dundalk, Ireland Site

Active ingredient production facilities In April 2018, WuXi Biologics announced plans to build a new biologics drug substance manufacturing facility on 26 hectares (64 acres) in Dundalk, Ireland. The project is directly supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland, with a cost of approximately $394 million. When completed, the facility will be one of the world's largest plants supporting single-use bioreactors and will help accelerate the development of biologic drugs in Europe. MFG6 will have a perfusion bioreactor capacity of 6,000 liters in a continuous bioprocessing configuration and MFG7 will have a 48,000 liter bioreactor capacity in a traditional fed-batch configuration.

Vaccine production facility In November 2019, WuXi Vaccines, a subsidiary of WuXi Biologics, announced that it would invest an additional $240 million to build a new 167,056 sq ft (15,520.0 m2) vaccine manufacturing facility at the Dundalk, Ireland site. The vaccine site planned includes drug substance manufacturing facilities, drug product manufacturing, Manufacturing Science and Technology Labs as well as Quality Control labs. In February 2020, WuXi Vaccines announced it had signed a 20-year, $3 billion contract with an unidentified "global vaccine leader" to produce one of the unidentified company's vaccine products at the new facility.

Facilities in the United States

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with WuXi Biologics

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what WuXi Biologics claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to WuXi Biologics before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about WuXi Biologics ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of WuXi Biologics

In research: WuXi Biologics appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses WuXi Biologics in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: WuXi Biologics is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies based in Wuxi, Contract development and manufacturing organizations, Pharmaceutical companies of China, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for WuXi Biologics outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study WuXi Biologics in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what WuXi Biologics means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain WuXi Biologics out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is WuXi Biologics in simple terms?

Why does WuXi Biologics matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study WuXi Biologics?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on WuXi Biologics.