Curia Announces Expansion Of Glasgow Sterile Drug Product Facility And Enhancements To Cell Line Development Platform

Curia, a global contract research, development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), announced new progress on the expansion of its sterile drug product facility in Glasgow, UK, along with significant upgrades to its proprietary cell line development platform. The updates reflect the company’s strategy to strengthen both its sterile manufacturing capabilities and its biologics development services.

The Glasgow facility has earned a longstanding reputation in the pharmaceutical industry, backed by more than 25 years of experience in formulation development, lyophilization, and sterile fill-finish operations. The site supports a wide range of product types, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and highly potent compounds. The current expansion project is expected to be completed by early 2027. As part of this investment, the site will add an Annex 1–compliant isolator-based vial filling line and a new lyophilizer. Once operational, the upgraded facility will be able to fill batches of up to 20,000 vials and will be positioned to support future small-scale commercial production.

Ron Aungst, Vice President of Drug Product Business Unit Operations at Curia, noted that the Glasgow expansion aligns with the near-completion of the company’s major build-out at its commercial drug product facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Aungst said the company has already secured key long-lead equipment to keep the Glasgow project moving forward and emphasized that ongoing operations at the site are expected to continue without interruption throughout the construction phase.

Along with its progress in sterile drug product manufacturing, Curia has also advanced its biologics capabilities with improvements to its cell line development (CLD) platform. The CLD offering at the company’s Hopkinton, Massachusetts facility now incorporates semi-targeted integration technology, which has demonstrated titers six times higher than those achieved through traditional random integration. Curia’s stable expression system, CHO-GSN®, originates from the same parental cell line as its transient platform, TunaCHO®, enabling a smoother transition for partners from discovery through GMP manufacturing.

Jamie Grabowski, President of Research & Development, said the strengthened platform supports Curia’s commitment to end-to-end biologics development. She noted that the enhanced cell line technology is designed to help partners move more efficiently through early clinical manufacturing while benefiting from biotech-friendly licensing terms. According to Grabowski, the reengineered cell line will play a key role in helping companies progress toward commercialization with greater speed and cost-effectiveness.