- MilliporeSigma opens a new €290 million biosafety testing facility in Rockville, MD, consolidating services under one roof.
- The facility offers advanced testing capabilities, reducing virus testing timelines from 35 to 14 days.
MilliporeSigma, the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, has opened a €290 million biosafety testing facility in Rockville, Maryland. The new 23,000-square-meter facility is designed to meet growing global demand for biosafety testing and analytical development. It will also offer cell banking manufacturing services.
The facility consolidates labs previously spread across four buildings into a single location. This integration is aimed at enhancing collaboration among scientists and increasing automation and digitalisation to improve Right First Time (RFT) results.
The Rockville site is part of Merck KGaA’s global biosafety testing network, which includes facilities in the U.S., China, Singapore, and the UK. The site is equipped with advanced testing capabilities, including a rapid methods package that speeds up virus testing of bulk harvest material. This new package, featuring the Blazar CHO Animal Origin Free (AOF) panel, reduces testing time to 14 days, compared to the 35 days required by traditional methods.
“This expansion is the largest investment in contract testing in the company’s history,” said Benjamin Hein, Head of Life Science Services at Merck KGaA. “It reflects our commitment to providing our clients with disruptive platforms that shorten biosafety testing timelines and ensure the safety of medicines for patients.”
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