Moderna Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company focusing on messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics, has signed a long-term lease to build a GMP clinical manufacturing facility in Norwood, Massachusetts. Moderna will begin initial build-out of the new facility in October 2016. The company plans to open the facility by early 2018.

The 200,000-square-foot Norwood facility will enable the manufacture, quality, control, and supply of clinical grade mRNA therapies and vaccines for good laboratory practices toxicology studies as well as Phase I and Phase II clinical studies. The company is planning an Initial investment of $110 million to build out 200,000-square-foot facility. At the site, Moderna will carry out all manufacturing activities from raw material production to active pharmaceutical ingredients, formulation, filling, and finish.

The new facility will host the following: GMP manufacturing and quality control; the company’s personalized cancer vaccines unit; preclinical technical operations and testing; and general administrative functions to support these teams. At the facility’s opening, the annual GMP manufacturing capacity will be 40 GMP mRNA lots and is expected to scale up to more than100 GMP mRNA clinical-scale lots annually in the future.

Moderna and its partners are simultaneously advancing mRNA drugs for many diseases toward the clinic, and the company anticipates conducting many clinical studies across its portfolio in parallel. Approximately 100 of Moderna’s current 460 team members will move from the company’s three existing locations in Cambridge to the Norwood facility. In addition, Moderna plans to hire more than 100 new employees for the Norwood site.

Source: Moderna Therapuetics