With 11 sites and 1,700 employees, Resilience is a fast-growing player in the biomanufacturing space. In March, the company signed a new financing agreement for $410 million in long-term loan financing from the U.S. Department of Defense to support the company in its push to establish domestic, end-to-end biomanufacturing capacity and capabilities for biologics, vaccines, and nucleic acids, including the new state-of-the-art facility in Marlborough the company is now building. And it’s Natalie Friel’s responsibility to do that.
Resilience purchased an eight-acre property in Marlborough for $11 million in May 2022 and plans for a $9-million renovation. The project is another expansion of the life sciences sector to Central Mass. from Greater Boston, as the San Diego-based firm already has facilities in Allston and Waltham. As of October, the Marlborough facility was 85% complete and due for an opening sometime this year. The goal of Friel’s efforts in Marlborough and Resilience’s larger plan for which it has raised $1.2 billion is to create a healthier world by using technology to develop simpler and less expensive ways for biopharmaceutical companies to make complex vaccines.
As a relative newcomer to Central Massachusetts, Friel – who was born in South America to a Chilean mother and American father and is a U.S. Army veteran who served as a captain in the area of military intelligence – has lived in 10 different states and countries and hopes to bring different perspectives to the community.
How should professionals best use the power they wield? “Quoting Dr. Seuss in The Lorax: ‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.’ People with power can and should invest themselves to make things better for their teams, company. or community, especially when the odds are tough, but the mission is important.”
No moments to re-lax: Friel played lacrosse for Army. Go Lady LAX!
