3M plans to invest $146 million to upgrade its biopharma filtration technology.
The money will go toward facility improvements, equipment upgrades and the hiring of 60 full-time manufacturing employees in Europe.
3M's filter technology is used for bioprocessing, biological and small molecule pharmaceutical manufacturing for customers making biopharmaceutical drugs. The filters are used to capture impurities.
"Our investment further demonstrates 3M's continued market leadership and ongoing commitment to customer-centric innovation in health care," Robert Befidi, president of 3M's Separation and Purification Sciences Division, said in a statement.
The filtration technology is part of 3M's health care business, which is being spun off into a separate public company. Last year, the unit had revenue of $8.4 billion, nearly 25% of overall company sales.
While 3M's health care sales were down last year, they were up 9.8% in 2021 partly due to "continued high demand for biopharma filtration solutions for COVID-related vaccine and therapeutic development and manufacturing," the company said.
