Envigo is investing in an expansion of its research model surgical facility at its Livermore, California site in response to increased market demand from West Coast biopharmaceutical customers. The new expanded capabilities will help create a West Coast Center of Excellence for surgical services and complement the company’s existing offering at its Indianapolis, Indiana site. The newly-expanded facility is expected to open in the second quarter of 2018.
The company will oversee a ten-fold increase in surgical capacity at its Livermore site – up from 500 to 5,000 square feet, a near doubling of surgical technicians and the installation of advanced equipment. Intensive care unit (ICU) recovery chambers and advanced ventilator and microscopic technologies – already in place at the Indianapolis site – will be installed. In addition, Envigo will fit environmentally friendly individual ventilated cages (IVCs) for all models and state-of-the-art RFID and software surgical tracking systems – providing vital monitoring of animal models from entering surgery to customer delivery.
There has been a large growth in outsourced surgical demand as pharma and biotech companies seek better access to translational surgical models, in particular in specialist areas such as myocardial infarction (MI). Growing numbers of companies, especially in the San Francisco area, are focused on developing new MI targets and pipelines.
“Our high quality myocardial infarction models perform within customer parameters in the high ninety percent range – much higher than other leading providers in the market. Consequently, we are pleased to meet a pressing need of customers and prospects based in the West Coast region, particularly given the high precision surgery required for myocardial infarction studies, through the buildout of our Livermore facility,” said Brad Gien, Head of North America Surgery at Envigo.