Australian biotech Aegros has completed Australia’s second human plasma fractionation facility, joining CSL’s long-established footprint. The 4000 sq mt Macquarie Park facility will utilise Aegros’s manufacturing technology Haemafrac®.
The process offers a higher protein production efficiency and increased cost benefit, improving upon still commonly used decades old technology.
Aegros’s facility has the initial capacity to process up to 125,000 litres of human plasma, producing hyperimmune globulins and immunoglobulin, plasma proteins to treat immune deficiencies, neurological disorders and as transplant anti-rejection therapy.
Aegros has designed its plant to eventually process up to 250,000 litres to meet the domestic and international demand, with neighbouring countries also facing an ageing challenge with limited domestic manufacturing capability.
The facility has been built with no other Government investment apart from the R&D tax incentive.
Australia imports 60 per cent of its immunoglobulin at a cost of $1 billion a year, including fractionation, a $55.2 million increase in about three years post pandemic. A NSW Productivity Commission report last year estimated that Australia is on track to import around 70 per cent of immunoglobulin by 2030.
Currently, only four companies supply plasma medicines under contract with the National Blood Authority for immunoglobulin in Australia, with Australia’s CSL sharing this with the Australian subsidiaries of Japan’s Takeda, Spain’s Grifols and the Switzerland’s Octopharma.
