Auckland BioSciences Completes North Shore Filtration Plant

AUCKLAND, New Zealand – 10 February 2023 – New Zealand life sciences company, Auckland BioSciences Limited (ABS), has completed construction of an animal serum filtration facility at its premises in Rosedale, Auckland. The facility is the newest large-scale sterile cleanroom of its kind in New Zealand and will enable ABS to provide higher-value products to global clients in the human and veterinary pharmaceutical industries.

ABS transforms animal waste into a high-value pharmaceutical grade product used internationally in the production of vaccines, therapeutics and pharmaceuticals. The company now employs 50 staff across New Zealand and Australia, and is the only New Zealand-owned sterile filtered serum enterprise in the country.

The new Rosedale facility signals ABS’s commitment to its position as a key supplier to pharmaceutical, diagnostics, and life science companies globally. The company can now produce sterile sera in New Zealand to bespoke specifications, and has the ability to scale production both in terms of product type and volumes. Its New Zealand-origin, ready-to-use serum will benefit customers who do not have their own sterile filtration capabilities. A sterile filtered product allows ABS to export to countries where sera must be sterile prior to importation.

ABS has recently achieved a milestone—delivering serum that meets human use criteria. This was accomplished in part due to the company’s ability to sterile filter all its serum, a critical step in making it ready for pharmaceutical applications.

Daniel Maxwell, Group General Manager Auckland BioSciences, says that the added complexity involved in filtering means the end product is significantly more valuable than the same product in raw form.

“Animal serum from New Zealand and Australia has an intrinsic premium in the global market due to the region’s world-class animal traceability systems, animal health management and freedom from major animal diseases. The disease-free nature of the herd means that the serum is the most preferred in the world and can be priced as high as 400% above serum from other parts of the world.

“Our ability to produce both higher-value raw and sterile serum means we’re able to supply a wider range of products to additional customers in more countries around the globe, including the lucrative US market.

"This year, ABS expects to commence supply to major global vaccine manufacturers, producing vital vaccines to countries around the world,” says Maxwell.

The new filtration facility complements an existing facility in Rutherford, New South Wales and ABS’s Christchurch site. Together, they produce filtered animal sera of different species for the global pharmaceutical industry. ABS’s New Zealand business alone processes over 2 million litres of raw material per annum. These materials would otherwise become waste or made into lower-value product. Company executives expect consolidated revenues to reach NZ$46m in FY2023.

In 2022, Auckland Biosciences was named winner of the Deloitte Master of Growth Index, placed 21 on the 2022 Deloitte Fast 50 Index, and was recognised as the Fastest Growing Manufacturing Business in the Auckland and Upper North Island category.

“As a start-up that operated out of a shipping container office less than a decade ago, we are incredibly humbled to have since become a leading exporter of serum products. The industry landscape is competitive, and I attribute ABS’s success to our team of incredibly smart and dedicated people,” says Maxwell.

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