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BD Celebrates Grand Opening of New Bioscience Production Facility in Miami
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$59 million investment in “antibiotic-free” and “animal-free” facility
Contact: Colleen T. White Corporate Communications (201) 847-5369 Email: colleen_white@bd.com Miami, FL (October 14, 2010) -- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, today celebrated the grand opening of its new BD Biosciences - Advanced Bioprocessing AF2™ Production Facility in Miami, Florida. The $59 million investment is the industry’s first fully dedicated, stand-alone “antibiotic-free” and “animal-free” facility for producing high-quality cell culture media and supplements that are used in the production of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals. This new manufacturing facility is expected to create 50 jobs by 2013. BD invested more than $20 million in renovating 90,000 square feet at the former IVAX Pharmaceuticals building in North Miami. The design of BD’s new AF2 Production Facility is based on the stringent needs of biopharmaceutical manufacturers to significantly reduce the risk of product contamination. “This facility will help BD meet the growing worldwide demand for our safe, high-yield cell culture media and supplements that are used in the production of biological medicines,” said William Rhodes, President, BD Biosciences. The new AF2 facility has been designed to meet cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practice) requirements, in order to deliver a new standard for safety and quality for cell culture media and supplements. Products manufactured in the new plant will be controlled for animal-origin component raw materials to the tertiary level, the most stringent level of control available. The new facility integrates cell culture media and supplement manufacturing capabilities, with the ability to produce complete formulations for the full range of expression systems for microbial fermentation, mammalian cell culture and stem cell culture. In September, BD’s Miami facility received the Newcomer Award as one of 18 Florida companies honored with a Governor’s Business Diversification Award (GBDA). Annually presented, the GBDAs recognize organizations that excelled significantly in job creation, distinctive community involvement and investment efforts in-state. The Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County's economic development partnership, assisted BD in obtaining state and local incentives and Enterprise Zone benefits. These were key factors in the Company’s selection of Miami-Dade County as its new location.
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