Fujifilm’s $8B manufacturing investment positions CDMO as end-to-end partner

Thanks to an $8 billion global investment, Fujifilm Biotechnologies has put in place the infrastructure needed to support end-to-end services covering drug substance manufacturing through finished goods, says Chief Operating Officer Maja Herold Pedersen.

Leveraging a modular approach to biomanufacturing called KojoX, Pedersen contends that Fujifilm’s global expansion across its contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) network — combining large-scale, stainless-steel bioreactors in Denmark and North Carolina with smaller single-use systems in Japan and the UK — positions the company to better serve customers by scaling service offerings and de-risking supply chains.   

“Mammalian cell culture is by far our largest modality,” Pedersen told Pharma Manufacturing. However, beyond drug substance manufacturing, Fujifilm Biotechnologies is expanding into drug product and finished goods — two modalities that she contends will enable the CDMO to be an “end-to-end partner” for its customers. 

Holly Springs, North Carolina is home to Fujifilm’s new biomanufacturing facility, one of the largest commercial-scale cell culture manufacturing sites in North America and a clone of its large-scale production site in Hillerød, Denmark.

Part of its drug product expansion at the Hillerød facility includes “refurbishing” a cleanroom and the addition of a “flex line that can do vial filling, syringes, and cartridges,” according to Pedersen, who described it as the CDMO’s “first drug product filler in the network” for monoclonal antibodies on a commercial scale.   

“We had the inspection in the Denmark facility and we made our first engineering batch of drug product,” Pedersen said. “Next is going to be Holly Springs, where we will be bringing drug product online later in 2026 — perhaps 2027 — depending on customer demand.”

Single-use manufacturing facilities

Pedersen also pointed to Fujifilm’s grand opening last month of its expanded manufacturing and process development site in Teesside, UK, a facility equipped with 2,000L and 5,000L single-use bioreactors which will be operational in the first half of 2026.

Teesside will tap the CDMO’s internally developed and fully automated downstream purification system called SymphonX, a skid system designed to provide the flexibility of scaling in fed-batch and continuous processes.

“Getting that UK site online marks the first of our single-use KojoX facilities,” Pedersen said.

Touted as the largest single-use biopharma CDMO facility in the UK, Teesside’s total capacity is up to 19,000L for small- and mid-scale antibody manufacturing and will closely align with a planned Fujifilm biomanufacturing facility in Toyama, Japan, providing rapid and seamless technology transfer capabilities. Pedersen said the Toyama plant will operate as a “clone to our UK facility.” 

Site construction at Fujifilm’s Toyama Second Factory in Toyama Prefecture was completed in December 2025. Fujifilm claims it is one of Japan’s largest bio CDMO facilities, marking the company’s first antibody drug manufacturing plant in the country.

The facility, operated by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical and slated to begin operations in 2027, will serve as its bio CDMO hub in Asia with two 5,000L and two 2,000L single-use mammalian cell culture bioreactors.

“We can flex across 2K and 5K,” Pedersen said. “Together, these investments will enhance scalability, speed, and supply chain resilience.”