The Indian contract research organization (CRO) inaugurated the Syngene Amgen Research & Development Center (SARC) in September 2016. The facility, based in Bangalore, India, was built as a dedicated R&D Center for Amgen.
According to the company, following the expansion – which will be customized to Amgen’s requirements – the facility’s floor space will double to 50,000 sq. ft. Additionally, Syngene’s team of scientists at the R&D center will increase to 185 from 100.
A company representative told Outsourcing-Pharma.com that the scope of the company's engagement expanded over time to include a wider spectrum of drug discovery and development activities.
"The Syngene Amgen R&D Center (SARC), the dedicated R&D center set up exclusively for Amgen, is the evolution of this mutual association to a higher level," the representative added.
"We will now have majority of Amgen projects housed in a single dedicated facility with a dedicated team of scientists working exclusively on Amgen projects. This will enable a more integrated approach to meet Amgen’s R&D requirements. It will also allow closer interaction between the various project teams from Syngene and Amgen."
Returning to 'solid growth'
In connection with the expansion announcement, Syngene also recently reported its Q1 FY18 revenue, which it said has “returned to solid growth,” as the company continues to recover from a fire incident at its Bengaluru site in December of last year.
The company noted in the report that it was also benefited by a multi-year manufacturing contract with a Japanese specialty pharma company for the supply of a Novel Chemical Entity (NCE) for commercial launch in the Japanese market.
"We remain confident that the impact of the fire incident of last year will taper off in the coming quarters and maintain our expectation that growth rates will continue to pick up in the latter half of the financial year," Jonathan Hunt, Syngene CEO said in the release.