A One-Stop-Shop For Biologics Production In Europe

By Louis Garguilo, Chief Editor, Outsourced Pharma

A history of bio-pharma outsourcing is writ large upon the chronicles of Cobra Biologics.  

It is the story of three European manufacturing facilities—a former AstraZeneca plant; one built by a Swedish pharmacy in the early sixties; and a biotech’s IC-funded dream—converging over decades and serving as a barometer of industry trends. The story touches topics of past and present, including the:

• vicissitudes of big pharma
• emergence of biotechs and biologics
• cycles of venture capital and economies
• growing centricity of outsourcing service providers

We start with the AstraZeneca facility, in Södertälje, Sweden, 30 kilometers southwest of Stockholm, birthplace of Astra AB. “It was and is today a modern, well equipped facility with two cGMP suites fantastically laid out, and scientists with vast experience producing mammalian and microbial products,” says Peter Coleman, CEO of Cobra Biologics, our bellwether CDMO.