Big in Broadmeadows: CSL bets billion-dollar plasma play will deliver returns

Biotech giant CSL is betting its near billion dollar investment in a new plasma processing plant in Melbourne will turbocharge its revenues coming out of Victoria, as the company switches its focus back from COVID vaccines to specialist blood-based medicine.

The $900 million facility will let CSL, Australia’s biggest healthcare company, increase its processing volumes and efficiency, helping it deliver plasma-based therapies quicker to the market.

CSL has been in the headlines over the past two years for its involvement in manufacturing the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine – but its main game is refining donated human plasma, the clear liquid in blood, into therapies to help patients with conditions like immune system diseases.

The pandemic played havoc with CSL’s ability to collect enough plasma from donors but as volumes rebound the new plant will help amp up the scale at which the company can process the raw material.

Chief executive Paul Perreault said it made sense to choose to expand the manufacturing capability in Victoria rather than elsewhere in the world. “Why not here? Our headquarters is here, our heritage is here, we’ve got great people here,” he said on Wednesday.

The new plasma fractionation facility at Broadmeadows, which was built in the midst of pandemic lockdowns, is highly automated and can process 9.2 million litres of human plasma each year – a nine-fold increase on current capacity. Fractionation is the process of isolating and separating the various proteins present in plasma into “pastes”, which are then further refined into therapies.

CSL’s chief operating officer Paul McKenzie said the site’s increased output will translate into more money flowing into the company’s coffers.

“Twenty per cent of the company’s revenues will come from Broadmeadows by the year 2030. That’s a remarkable achievement,” he said.

Broadmeadows currently contributes about 10 per cent of the group’s revenues, meaning that target would double what it delivers. The site will also increase CSL’s global footprint, processing donor plasma from Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia, as well as plasma shipped in from collection sites across the US.