August 9, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SGS, a biopharmaceutical analytics and bioanalytics contract organization, is expanding its facilities north of Chicago.
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, SGS has 2,000 offices and laboratories globally, and employs more than 90,000 people. The company focuses on inspection, verification, testing and certification, with 20 laboratories that offer contract analytical and bioanalytical services. It provides Phase I through Phase IV clinical trial management and services that range from data management and statistics, through PK/PD modeling and simulation, pharmacovigilance and regulatory consultation.
SGS is expanding its current facilities in Lincolnshire, north of Chicago, from 38,500 square feet to almost 58,000 square feet. The project is expected to be completed by September 2017. Additional staff will be employed to meet the demands on the laboratory.
“This investment allows us to be flexible in our approach to meeting both existing and future customer demands,” said James Nokes, SGS’s vice president, U.S. Agriculture, Food and Life, in a statement. “Analysis and bioanalysis techniques continue to evolve rapidly, and are driven by technological advances and regulatory needs. At SGS, it is our aim to ensure we can offer our clients integrated solutions to support their needs, so we continue to invest in capabilities, capacity and our staff to maintain our professionalism and efficiency.”
The company indicates that the expansion in Lincolnshire follows recent investments in the company’s global laboratory network. As a result, there has been an increase in extractables and leachables capabilities at its locations in Fairfield, NJ and Shanghai, China. In addition, its facilities at Poitiers and Villeneuve-la-Garenne, France, have growth in bioanalytical capabilities and elemental analysis, respectively.
The New Jersey site is the company’s North American Center of Excellence for E&L (extractables and leachables). In January, the company indicated that it had brought on new instruments, an LC-MS/MS and GC-MS with head-space capability, which allows for improved and quick identification of trace unknown extractable compounds. That facility currently offers testing facilities for various E&L applications, including final pharmaceutical packaging, single-use systems and medical devices.
LC-MS/MS is liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and GC-MS is gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
“SGS has seen a rise in the demand for services in this area, and we have invested significantly across our global network to ensure that we can maintain our strong reputation for extractables and leachables testing expertise,” said Kelly Bertran, SGS’s general manager at the Fairfield facility, in a statement in January. “The additional capabilities we have now at Fairfield allow us to overcome greater analytical challenges for our existing clients, and ensure we can remain competitive and have the capacity to attract new customers.”
This followed a 2016 announcement that SGS had launched a comprehensive drug compatibility study testing at its laboratory in Shanghai, China, and the ribbon-cutting of a new global Center of Excellence for Extractable Studies and Impurities Profiling in Wiesbaden, Germany.
And in February 2017, SGS indicated it was expanding storage capacity at its laboratory in Mississauga, Canada. This will be used for the effective stability testing of new drug substances and products for regulatory compliance. The storage capacity increased from 200 cubic meters to approximately 450 cubic meters. The extra capacity is divided between six new chambers, which cover four standard storage conditions and temperatures.
