Estimating capital investment and facility footprint in cell therapy facilities

Abstract

Estimations of the facility footprint and fixed capital investment (FCI) of cell therapy (CT) facilities need to consider the unique features of the single-use technologies (SUTs) selected for CT manufacture (e.g. cleanroom containment requirement, capacity, automation) and the product nature that impacts scale-out versus scale-up approaches. A novel detailed factorial methodology is proposed for estimating FCI and footprint for bespoke stick-built cell therapy facilities that accounts for technology-specific factors for key cell culture technologies as well as the implications of SUTs, open versus closed operations and the commercialisation scenario selected. This was used to derive benchmark values for short-cut cost and area factors for typical cell therapy facilities according to the technologies selected. The results provide project-specific ratios for equipment purchase costs to facility footprint (area factor) and for FCI to total equipment purchase costs (cost factor or “Lang” factor). Area factors ($/m2) were 675-6,815 and the cost factors were 2.3–8.5 for a greenfield project in a medium-developed country. The case study shows that for the same output, facility footprints and FCI values are on average 6 times higher for autologous processes than allogeneic processes. This is attributed to economies of scale achieved with scale-up for allogeneic cell therapy manufacture. This study can be used to predict the commercial FCI and facility footprint during early stages of process development.