Milford life sciences firm achieves milestone in historic expansion
Photo | Courtesy of Rentschler Biopharma
Lab workers at Rentschler Biopharma's facility in Milford
The Milford production line in the largest-ever expansion for global biopharmaceutical manufacturer Rentschler Biopharma is now fully operational, a major milestone as the Germany-based company ramps up its contract work.
The expansion is the largest investment in the company’s more than 150-year history, according to a Thursday press release from Rentschler Biopharma. The Milford site, which was originally a single product facility, is now producing multiple products in a 500-liter bioreactor setup. The new production line added 22,000 square feet of manufacturing cleanroom space and houses four new 2,000 liter single-use bioreactors.
The groundbreaking for the expansion took place in August 2021, and the first engineering run of a 2,000 liter batch has been completed. The company is using the new facility to produce biopharmaceutical products for clients as a contract development and manufacturing organization. Rentschler Biopharma has project work underway for an unnamed major client project at the new line, with new clients actively being onboarded,
The multi-product facility doubles the company’s global current good manufacturing practice capacity, which is focused on commercial production of highly complex molecules. Rentschler Biopharma acquired the Milford site in 2019.
The company in April received the gold award for the Central Massachusetts region in the 20th Annual Team Massachusetts Economic Impact Awards for its contributions to job growth, facility expansion, investment, and community engagement. The company received $825,000 in tax incentives from Massachusetts as part of the expansion.
Tom Roberts was hired as the first president of the Milford site and general manager U.S. in September.
“Our new line is vital to growing our business and effectively serving the U.S. market, and I am excited about bringing in new clients as well as expanding our support of existing ones with a reliability they can trust,” Roberts said in the press release. “We are embarking on a new stage in our long and successful history and are poised to tackle the most complex challenges in biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing.”
Rentschler Biopharma offers process development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, including adeno-associated virus gene therapies, as well as related consulting activities, project management, and regulatory support.
In addition to its Milford site, the family-owned company, headquartered in Laupheim, Germany, has a third site located in the United Kingdom, which is dedicated to advanced therapies. The company has about 1,400 employees globally.
Sara Bedigian is a participant in the Editorial Internship Program at Worcester Business Journal. She is a rising junior at the University of Connecticut, where she studies journalism and political science. She will be the editor of the student-run newspaper The Daily Campus in the fall.
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