A new cell and gene therapy testing facility in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard is officially opened, WuXi ATU
announced
Monday.
The new facility includes 140,000 square feet worth of laboratories, and will enhance the company’s contract testing, development and manufacturing organization business model by tripling the company’s previous capacity.
The move helps strengthen the existing testing capacity and capability, and combines the company’s powerful testing capabilities with its advanced therapies’ process development and manufacturing platforms, such as TESSA technology for AAV manufacturing and XLenti stable solutions for lentiviral manufacturing, it says in a press release.
“WuXi ATU has always been at the forefront of innovation in Philadelphia,” said Kate McNamara, the SVP of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, Naval Yard site. “We are thrilled to celebrate their continued expansion and growth with the opening of the new advanced therapies testing facility at the Navy Yard.”
The Alexandria Real Estate group announced that it will make a push to bring R&D and “next-gen manufacturing” to North Carolina’s Research Triangle through partnerships with top-tier biotechs through a series of acquisitions.
Most notably, the
company
bought up a 95 acre parcel on Cornwallis Road to build the Alexandria Center for NextGen Medicines, and is in the permitting phase for a 125,000-square-foot site.
“We entered the Research Triangle market in 1998, we are incredibly proud today of our position at the vanguard of the life science ecosystem that is leading the integration of R&D with next-gen manufacturing for complex medicines.” said founder Joel Marcus. “Through Alexandria’s mission-critical infrastructure, we are enabling revolutionary gene therapy companies to produce their medicines in-house and thereby increase their control over their quality, supply chains and talent within the United States.”
Massachusetts CDMO Arranta Bio has completed the sale of a GMP clinical manufacturing site in Gainesville, FL, and transferred its client programs and key employees to the Watertown facility, the company
said
Monday.
Inceptor Bio is the new owner of the site about four miles north of the University of Florida campus. The Watertown site will now have more than 160 employees focused on supporting microbiome clients, manufacturing critical starting materials and establishing mRNA vaccine capabilities. Its also prgressing its end-to-end mRNA capabilities, and will launch a robotic sterile fill line by the end of Q2 2o22.
“We are delighted that Inceptor Bio will build on the foundation that we established in Gainesville and wish them every success in developing life-saving cell therapy products,” CEO Mark Bamforth said in a press release. “And we are thrilled to continue to build and expand Arranta’s commercial-ready manufacturing team in Massachusetts, the global hub for biosciences.”
