Rentschler Biopharma to Begin Construction of New Multi-Product Commercial Manufacturing Facility

On Aug. 12, 2021, Rentschler Biopharma announced that it has broken ground at its new production site, adjacent to its existing Milford, Mass., site where it will build the Rentschler Biopharma Manufacturing Center US, a new facility that will add 22,000 ft² of manufacturing cleanroom space and house four new 2000-L single-use bioreactors. The company expects the RBMC US to be operational in late 2023.

The facility is designed with upstream ballroom processing-size space for production flexibility and downstream processing suites equipped with buffer storage and preparation space. The building will be able to accommodate future expansions for scale up and capacity. The new site will also include expanded quality control, development, and warehousing capabilities and will be highly automated while leveraging industry 4.0 solutions. The facility is expected to provide innovative digital and analytical services, such as advanced analytics yield optimization, augmented/virtual reality-enabled operations, and no-touch batch releases.

The new site is expected to expand Rentschler Biopharma’s ability to offer the US market commercial capacity and project diversity. Similarly, the current Milford site has undergone expansion, going from a single-product commercial facility to a multi-product-producing facility in scales up to 500 L. The new facility will add space for manufacturing and will enable the company to centralize its support services for US projects.

“With Rentschler Biopharma’s contribution to the production of mRNA [messenger RNA] vaccines to beat the COVID-19 virus, we have seen firsthand how important it is to have highly adaptable capacity and to have the experience and expertise needed to produce new therapeutic modalities fast. The US expansion we have kicked off at the groundbreaking is part of our ongoing plan to strategically grow our business as we support our clients in developing and manufacturing even highly complex molecules,” said Frank Mathias, CEO of Rentschler Biopharma SE, in a company press release.

“This new site will double our commercial [C]GMP [current good manufacturing practice] manufacturing capacity. By bringing in state-of-the-art technology and industry 4.0 solutions, RBMC US will strongly enhance our value proposition in commercial manufacturing,” said Martin Kessler, CEO of Rentschler Biopharma Inc., the company’s wholly owned US subsidiary, in the press release.

Source: Rentschler Biopharma