In December, the company received the benefit of a $1 million grant from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development to expand its manufacturing capacity in Elkton. The site is being added in order to increase Clene’s manufacturing capacity and support potential commercialization of its nanocrystal-based asset, CNM-Au8. Mark G. Mortenson, Clene’s Chief Scientific Officer, said the expansion of the company’s capacity in Elkton will provide them with forty-times their manufacturing capacity by 2025.
At this moment, a confluence of factors, including the boom in mRNA vaccine technology and new cell and gene therapy firms, has grown beyond the capacity of the nation’s contract manufacturing industry, which firms depend on to outsource their therapy production or meet sudden demand. Life sciences startups need these spaces to run clinical trials and work out kinks in their own manufacturing processes before making bigger real estate commitments. Contract manufacturing organizations are booked solid throughout the rest of the year, said Matt Gardner, a biomanufacturing specialist who was just named head of CBRE’s U.S. Advisory Life Sciences Practice. Finding small-batch production space in the 1,000-liter stainless steel tanks used to create and manufacture drugs or new biologics won’t be possible until 2023. “There’s nowhere near enough pilot-scale production, which is where companies fail fast and fail forward,” Gardner said. “You want to fail at 500 liters, so you don’t at 50,000 liters. That’s the scale where we see tremendous demand and need much more of.”
At ACC we deal with manufacturing companies from many different industries. We have run into some of the same issues affecting our customers, no matter the industry, time and time again. We have compiled our list of the #top5 issues affecting manufacturing this year.
The biotech economy continues its expansion and shows no sign of slowing in 2022. On this webinar you’ll hear from several biomanufacturing leaders from various sectors of the field to talk about the biomanufacturing roles at their company and what they look for when hiring for their teams.
Many community colleges are now offering intense boot camps that last weeks instead of years, she says. Montgomery College and Frederick Community College, both in Maryland, launched weeks-long biotech boot camps in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Graduates usually leave with a certificate and the laboratory skills that employers are looking for, such as moving cells without contaminating them and donning gear needed to work in a sterile environment.
The Plymouth Group, which owns the property, has partnered with Centerbridge Partners, L.P. to turn the former Budd Plant in Philadelphia into a facility that will support biomanufacturing efforts of companies across Cellicon Valley. The new site will position Philadelphia as a key lynchpin in biomanufacturing and continue the city’s growth as one of the top biopharma hubs in the United States.
Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical arm, Janssen, embarked on a global effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. To support their goal of supplying one billion doses of vaccine, an agreement with a contract manufacturer was reached. Large-scale manufacturing of Janssen’s vaccine would take place at the contract manufacturing site, which is designed for rapid manufacturing of vaccines and other treatments in large quantities during public health emergencies.
Montgomery College, Maryland’s largest and most diverse community college, provides the BioHealth Capital Region with dozens of qualified research and manufacturing associates each year.
The Jefferson Institute for Bioprocessing (JIB) is a jewel in the crown of Cellicon Valley. The institute provides critical training in biomanufacturing and bioprocessing for next-generation biologics, vaccines, and cell and gene therapies; skills that are in urgent demand by employers everywhere who are being challenged to find enough experienced employees to sustain their growth.
