Almac Opens Diagnostic Lab in Durham

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North Carolina’s roster of contract research organizations (CROs), already the world’s largest, is a little bit bigger today.

Almac Group, a global CRO based in Northern Ireland, has opened a new development facility for companion diagnostics in Durham, adjacent to its 300-employee Clinical Services operation.

The company’s diagnostic business unit, Almac Diagnostics, will develop diagnostics for both research and clinical use at the 150,000-square-foot facility, located at 4238 Technology Drive.

The diagnostics facility will initially employ 15 people but will add more, a company representative said. Almac’s website lists a dozen job openings for business and technical positions.

The custom-designed facility provides a U.S. base to support the increasing demand for Almac’s companion diagnostics (CDx) development partnerships as well as a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-accredited laboratory to support the downstream delivery of assays for patient testing, Almac said in a news release.

Increasing Almac's global capacity

"The opening of our new CDx facility in the U.S. is Almac Diagnostics’ latest initiative to better serve our global biopharma partners,” said Paul Harkin, president and managing director of Almac Diagnostics. “As we experience increased client demand for our companion diagnostic development services, this latest expansion will significantly enhance Almac’s offering, increasing capacity and further demonstrating our commitment to personalized healthcare.”

Companion diagnostics are medical tests that are typically paired with a specific drug. They help doctors prescribe the most effective treatments and dosages, tailored to an individual patient’s specific genetic makeup and health profile.

Almac’s labs are equipped with microarray and quantitative polymerase chain reaction platforms, and additional technology platforms including next-generation sequencing will be added in the coming year, the company said.

The Almac Group is a privately owned contract development and manufacturing organization that serves 600 pharmaceutical and biotech companies globally. Its services include R&D, biomarker discovery and development, manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients, formulation development, clinical trial supply and commercial-scale manufacture.

Over 1,200 of its 4,000 employees are in the U.S.

Almac Group has grown over 40 years and now employs more than 4,000 people worldwide, including more than 1,200 in the U.S. Headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, the company has U.S. operations in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California, and Asian operations in Singapore and Tokyo.

Almac Diagnostics is one of five business units operating under the Almac Group.  It supports the discovery, development and delivery of companion diagnostics for the biopharmaceutical industry.

In addition, Almac Diagnostics has a pipeline of proprietary oncology-based tests in development for breast, colon, ovarian, prostate and lung cancer.

Almac Group’s expanded presence in Durham adds to the state’s robust CRO industry, which includes about 130 companies employing 21,000 people in the state and tens of thousands of others around the globe.

CRO companies support pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies and research institutions with a wide range of services, including biopharmaceutical development, diagnostics development, commercialization, preclinical and clinical research and clinical trials management.

A study of the state’s life science landscape by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice says this specialized field of outsourcing is one of six emerging life science technology sectors in North Carolina that are likely to flourish into the future. 

Barry Teater, NCBiotech Writer
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