Sai Life Sciences announces plans to double headcount and expand capabilities in Manchester, UK

Sai Life Sciences, one of India’s fastest growing Contract Research, Development & Manufacturing Organizations (CRDMOs), today announced plans to double its headcount and expand its suite of technical capabilities at its Manchester site, a centre of excellence for API process and analytical development serving an expanding list of global clients.

Making the announcement, Krishna Kanumuri, CEO & Managing Director, Sai Life Sciences said, “We are truly heartened by our customers’ response to our Manchester site. The site serves as a vital bridge to our pilot and manufacturing facilities in India, enabling seamless integration with the rest of our service offerings across the USA and India, spanning the drug discovery, development, and commercialisation continuum. This expansion will further enhance our ability to add value to the NCE pipelines of our customers.”

The Sai Life Sciences’ Manchester site became fully operational in August 2020 despite challenges posed by the pandemic, on-boarded 24 members of staff and has since delivered multiple projects involving complex chemistry. With a growing interest from customers across the UK, Europe and US, the present expansion involves an increase in capacity from 20 to 75 fume cupboards and an increase in headcount from 24 to 50+ scientists. A further expansion will see the addition of a GMP Kilo Lab later in 2021. The company has recently commenced recruitment for multiple positions across API process and analytical research & development, particle sciences and engineering. The current list of open positions can be viewed here.

Located in the heart of the Alderley Park life-sciences ecosystem, Sai Life Sciences’ Manchester site creates opportunities for UK and EU based pharma companies and biotechs to have easier face-to-face collaboration with its scientists, and to provide easier collaboration with US based clients due to reduced time zone differences. The centre of excellence is well-positioned to provide world-class development, scale-up and technology transfer to the Indian sites as and when required. This new expansion will also add capability in a number of key areas including process analytical technology (PAT), crystallisation development and physical properties analysis.

Sai Life Sciences is currently in the midst of an organization-wide transformation. As part of the Sai Nxt initiative, it is investing over US$150 million between 2019 and 2023 across three core areas – people & culture, processes & automation, infrastructure & scientific capabilities.