Manufacturing tech consumption up

Up 1.4% from March of 2006, US manufacturing technology consumption totalled $371.10 million, according to AMTDA, the American Machine Tool Distributors' Association, and AMT, the Association For Manufacturing Technology, reports Industry Week.

This total was up 34.9% from February. The year-to-date total of $945.27 million was up 7.1% compared with 2006.

"Strong March results have produced continued growth in the first quarter of the year," said John J Healy, president of AMTDA. "This pattern of steady growth is expected to continue."

AstraZeneca has acquired the biologics manufacturing facility in Montreal, Canada, from DSM Biologics, according to Marketwire. The facility, occupying 66 000 square feet, will be used to manufacture antibody drug candidates for clinical trials and will serve the whole of the AstraZeneca group.

DSM mothballed the Montreal facility as part of its strategy for DSM Biologics. Core to this strategy is the development and out-licensing of a new manufacturing technology platform based on the PER.C6 human cell line, in a joint venture with the Dutch biotechnology company Crucell.

The two companies recently announced a breakthrough in production yields, achieving 10g/L in the fermentation of monoclonal antibodies, using the PER.C6 technology platform, and stating a target of 20g/L for their near-term development efforts.

Viking has recently purchased an all-electric injection moulding press, integrated with a new high-speed picker and part diverter - the first of several planned for purchase as part of the company's aggressive capital reinvestment programme, according to eMediawire.

The company will expand its cellular manufacturing capacity, and yield tighter tolerances and improved quality through statistical process control (SPC) production monitoring and scientific moulding with suspect-process diversion.

Among numerous technological benefits, the new work-cell-based equipment enables production monitoring via SPC, and automated identification and diversion of suspect components during manufacturing processes.